An attorney for the U.S. Virgin Islands argued in federal court that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and ex-top bank executive Jes Staley were aware of sex trafficking by the bank’s notorious client Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawyer’s argument pushed back at JPMorgan’s move earlier this month to shift any obligation for its business relationship with the late Epstein onto Staley alone.
“Jamie Dimon knew in 2008 that his billionaire client was a sex trafficker,” attorney Mimi Liu told Manhattan U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff at a hearing late Thursday, referring to the yr Epstein was first criminally charged with sex crimes.
Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan Chase, during Jim Cramer interview, Feb. 23, 2023.
CNBC
“If Staley is a rogue worker, why is not Jamie Dimon?” Liu said on the hearing, which handled JPMorgan’s efforts to dismiss the Virgin Islands’ lawsuit against the bank over its relationship with Epstein.
The lawyer continued: “Staley knew, Dimon knew, JPMorgan Chase knew” about Epstein’s criminal conduct.
Liu said there have been multiple money transactions and wire transfers by Epstein, including sending lots of of 1000’s of dollars to several women, which must have been officially flagged as suspicious.
“They broke every rule to facilitate his sex trafficking in exchange for Epstein’s wealth, connections and referrals,” Liu argued
“This case was not only Jes Staley … there will probably be quite a few documents that go far beyond his office to the manager suite,” she said.Â
A lawyer for JPMorgan disputed those arguments, “particularly the purpose about Jamie Dimon having any specific knowledge.”
Dimon is just not a named defendant within the suit against the bank.
Jes Staley, chief executive officer of Barclays Plc, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview on day three of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019.
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
JPMorgan spokeswoman Patricia Wexler in an announcement said, “It’s unfair for CNBC to report lawyers’ unsubstantiated arguments as facts.”
Wexler also said, “Jamie Dimon has no recollection of reviewing the Epstein accounts.”
Staley has denied knowing about Epstein’s illegal conduct. He was CEO of Barclays from 2015 until late 2021, when he quit after a probe by British financial regulators into his ties to Epstein.
Attorneys for the Virgin Islands previously have highlighted an August 2008 internal email at JPMorgan which suggested that Epstein’s account could be closed that yr due to concerns over his conduct.
“I might count Epstein’s assets as a probable outflow for ’08 ($120mm or so?) as I am unable to imagine it’ll stay (pending Dimon review),” an unidentified worker wrote in that email, mentioned in the Virgin Islands’ lawsuit.
That email got here two years after JPMorgan’s Global Corporate Security Division found several newspaper articles “that detail the indictment of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida on felony charges of soliciting underage prostitutes,” the lawsuit noted.
U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the Recent York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ sex offender registry March 28, 2017 and obtained by Reuters July 10, 2019.
Recent York State Division of Criminal Justice Services | Handout | Reuters
The Virgin Islands’ lawsuit against the bank alleges that Epstein’s 15-year customer relationship with the bank helped him transport young women, whom he and others then sexually abused at his property within the Virgin Islands.
The suit was filed three years after Epstein, who was a former friend of ex-Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal child sex trafficking charges.
JPMorgan has said Dimon was not involved in decisions related to Epstein’s account on the bank.
Last week, the bank sued Staley, its former chief of investment banking, alleging that he’s legally answerable for lawsuits from the Virgin Islands and Epstein’s victims related to Epstein’s relationship with JPMorgan. The suit seeks to claw back greater than $80 million in compensation Staley received.
In arguments Thursday, a lawyer for the bank said “all roads go to Mr. Staley.”
“He will probably be at the middle of this case whether there may be one or two” trials for every lawsuit, the lawyer said.
Epstein was a personal wealth client of the bank until 2013, at the least partly because Staley had vouched for him.
But in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state charge of procuring an underage prostitute, a criminal offense that was extensively reported on the time. He later served 13 months in jail.
“In 2013 — the yr that JP Morgan terminated its relationship with Epstein — JPMorgan flagged in Epstein’s history that ‘[p]er bank policy, felons [like Epstein] are considered high risk and require additional approval,'” the Virgin Islands’ suit notes.
Rakoff, the judge, didn’t rule Thursday on the motion to dismiss the suit. He said he would rule on that query by the tip of March.
