Lawyers for a Jeffrey Epstein victim asked a federal judge on Friday to permit them to take recent testimony from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and others as a part of a lawsuit against the bank over its dealings with sex predator Epstein.
The lawyers, who deposed Dimon for the suit last month, alleged in a Manhattan District Court filing that JPMorgan has “strategically” didn’t promptly turn over documents to them as a part of the case, as required by Judge Jed Rakoff.
That prevented the accuser’s lawyers from asking questions on those documents on the time Dimon and other key witnesses were deposed, based on the filing by attorney Sigrid McCawley.
The filing says that after Dimon’s deposition, JPMorgan “produced 1,500 documents, a few of which got here from the custodial files of witnesses whose depositions had long passed.”
The accuser, who’s suing under the pseudonym Jane Doe, in her suit claims that JPMorgan facilitated and financially benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking of her and other young women for years when he was a customer of the bank.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., right, on the US Capitol following a gathering with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 17, 2023.
Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The federal government of the U.S. Virgin Islands alleges the identical claim in a separate lawsuit pending in the identical courthouse.
JPMorgan denies any wrongdoing but has said it regrets having had Epstein as a client.
Along with Dimon, the accuser’s lawyers wish to reopen the depositions of Mary Erdoes, who’s CEO of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division; Mary Casey, who was Epstein’s banker for a few decade at JPMorgan; and a fourth person, only identified within the filing as JPMorgan’s “representative.”
All 4 can be asked about documents turned over only after their initial depositions, the filing said.
One such document, turned over after Dimon’s deposition was taken May 26, “appears to discuss with a 2019 internal review of [redacted] electronic communications with Jeffrey Epstein, conducted after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and death,” based on the filing.
One late-produced document was a timeline that amongst other things referenced emails through which a then-top bank executive Jes Staley asks Epstein an issue.
“These documents exhibit that JPMC was fully able to learning the complete extent of Epstein and Staley’s personal relationship … and yet waited to accomplish that until 2019 despite the myriad red flags and public reports about Epstein’s conduct through the years,” the filing said.
“Plaintiff would have confronted JPMC’s CEO, Mr. Dimon,
with this document during his deposition had it been produced in a timely manner,” the filing said.
McCawley noted that Rakoff in May had admonished JPMorgan for turning over documents to the plaintiff’s legal team “at an inexplicably slow rate.”
“Despite the Court’s clear warning, JPMC still didn’t expeditiously produce documents from the custodial files of key witnesses, a few of whom had already been deposed, for strategic reasons,” the lawyer wrote.
“For instance, the weekend prior to the close of fact discovery, and immediately after the May 26 deposition of its CEO Jamie Dimon, JPMC produced 1,500 documents, a few of which got here from the custodial files of witnesses whose depositions had long passed,” McCawley wrote.
“This pattern of manufacturing documents from the custodial files of witnesses after their depositions has endured throughout the invention period.”
Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan, in an email to CNBC said, “Plaintiffs just like the headlines, but no period of time on the record will change the undeniable fact that Jamie never met the person, never worked with the person, and desires in hindsight the person had never been a client of the firm.”
— CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.