Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., throughout a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee listening to in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Visuals
JPMorgan Chase on Wednesday turned down allegations cited in a new report that CEO Jamie Dimon around many years talked over the bank’s then-customer Jeffrey Epstein — a intercourse predator — with Jes Staley, who at the time was a leading JPMorgan executive.
“We believe this is false. There is no evidence that any these communications ever happened — very little in the voluminous selection of paperwork reviewed and nothing at all in the virtually dozen depositions taken, together with that of our own CEO,” JPMorgan spokeswoman Patricia Wexler claimed in a assertion to CNBC.
“The just one particular person who promises this to be accurate is presently accused of horrific functions and dishonesty – and has not been deposed,” Wexler reported, referring to Staley.
Wexler’s comments arrived several hours right after The Wall Street Journal revealed an posting saying that Staley, in legal files, reported that for several years he communicated with Dimon about JPMorgan’s organization with Epstein.
Epstein was a customer of the financial institution from 1998 to 2013, trying to keep hundreds of thousands and thousands of bucks on deposit in multiple accounts.
“In the files, Staley claimed that Dimon communicated with him when Epstein was arrested in 2006 and in 2008 when Epstein pleaded guilty” to a intercourse criminal offense in Florida, The Journal noted.
“Staley also said that Dimon communicated with him a variety of times about irrespective of whether to retain Epstein as a consumer by way of 2012,” in accordance to The Journal.
Epstein served additional than a 12 months in jail for the Florida conviction of soliciting sex from a insignificant, a scenario that was extensively noted at the time.
The Journal also claimed that it experienced seen paperwork indicating that Dimon and Staley experienced a meeting scheduled with Epstein on March 2, 2010. JPMorgan informed that newspaper that Dimon did not attend that conference, and that it was not on the CEO’s calendar.
Dimon was deposed on Friday for two civil lawsuits in U.S. District Court docket in Manhattan from the lender accusing JPMorgan of enabling and financially benefitting from sex trafficking by Epstein.
Just one fit was filed by the governing administration of the U.S. Virgin Islands, exactly where Epstein preserved a home on a non-public island. The other criticism was submitted by an Epstein accuser who is seeking to make her grievance a class-action accommodate on behalf of other ladies.
The go well with against JPMorgan by an Epstein accuser alleges that Staley “understood with out any doubt that Epstein was trafficking and abusing girls.”
JPMorgan has claimed in a court docket filing that Staley is the person identified, with out currently being named in that match, as using “intense pressure” in sexually assaulting an Epstein accuser.
Staley denies wrongdoing and also denies getting acknowledged about Epstein’s abuse of young women of all ages.
Deutsche Lender, which turned Epstein’s lender in 2013 soon after JPMorgan severed ties with him on the heels of Staley’s exit from the financial institution, previously this thirty day period agreed to settle for $75 million a lawsuit by a further Epstein accuser. That deal will gain other women of all ages who had been victimized by Epstein throughout the time he was a Deutsche Lender consumer.
JPMorgan, which denies any wrongdoing, has alleged in lawful filings that Staley is accountable for any civil liability arising from Epstein’s use of money he had on deposit at that bank to send younger gals to the Virgin Islands and elsewhere to be abused by him and others.
Wexler final week stated immediately after Dimon’s deposition, “Our CEO reaffirmed soon after his deposition that, as he has beforehand explained, he hardly ever met with him, under no circumstances emailed him, does not recall at any time discussing his accounts internally, and was not associated in any conclusions about his account.”
“There are around a million internet pages of e-mail and other documents that have been generated in this case and not a person comes close to even suggesting that he had any function in selections about Epstein’s accounts,” Wexler said.
“As we have said, we now know that Epstein’s actions was monstrous, and his victims are entitled to justice. In hindsight, any association with him was a slip-up and we regret it, but these fits are misdirected as we did not help him dedicate his heinous crimes.”
Epstein, 66, killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August 2019, a thirty day period soon after federal authorities arrested and charged him with little one sex trafficking.
Dimon has expressed regret that JPMorgan did small business with Epstein
“I am so sad that we had any connection to that guy in anyway,” the CEO informed Bloomberg in an job interview Could 11.
“You know, we experienced best legal professionals assessing, from the [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] enforcement, the [Department of Justice], you know, and definitely, experienced we recognised then what we know now, we would have accomplished items in a different way,” Dimon explained.
–CNBC’s Dawn Giel contributed to this report.
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