Albert Bryan Jr., governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, speaks throughout the SelectUSA Investment Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, on May 2, 2023.
Ting Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase in a court filing Tuesday called the U.S. Virgin Islands “complicit within the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein,” saying the sex predator gave high-ranking officials there money, advice and favors in exchange for looking the opposite way when he trafficked young women to be abused on his island getaway.
“For 20 years, and for long after JPMC exited Epstein as a client, the entity that the majority directly did not protect public safety and most actively facilitated and benefited from Epstein’s continued criminal activity was the plaintiff on this case — the USVI government itself,” the bank said within the Manhattan federal court filing.
“Slightly than stop him, they helped him,” JPMorgan said, citing tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives and other advantages the territory gave Epstein.
That claim comes as JPMorgan defends itself against a civil lawsuit by the Virgin Islands, which alleges that the bank knowingly enabled Epstein’s sex trafficking and benefited from it when he was a customer from 1998 through 2013.
A spokesman for theVirgin Islands’ attorney general’s office told CNBC on Tuesday, “JPMorgan Chase facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, and must be held accountable for violating the law.”
“That is an obvious try and shift blame away from JPMorgan Chase, which had a obligation to report the evidence in its possession of Epstein’s human trafficking, and did not achieve this,” the spokesman said.
The bank’s filing Tuesday asked Judge Jed Rakoff to disclaim a motion by the Virgin Islands that will preclude JPMorgan from raising certain so-called affirmative defenses to the lawsuit.
“USVI’s motion seeks to strike only those specific defenses that threaten to reveal its relationship with Epstein,” the filing said.
In a footnote, the filing said the Virgin Islands had three governors over the past 16 years: John de Jongh, Kenneth Mapp and current governor Albert Bryan Jr.
“As detailed herein, Epstein had close ties to every of them,” that footnote said.
Earlier Tuesday, one other court filing for the primary time revealed that Bryan is scheduled to be deposed June 6 for the lawsuit. A source acquainted with the situation told CNBC that JPMorgan requested the deposition of Bryan, who has been governor since 2019.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is scheduled to be deposed within the suit Friday in Recent York.
Rakoff last week authorized the Virgin Islands to serve a subpoena for Tesla CEO Elon Musk on his electric automotive company, looking for documents that Musk can have showing any communications involving him, Epstein and JPMorgan.
That subpoena is predicated on suspicion by the territory that Epstein can have referred Musk or tried to refer him to the bank as a client.
Epstein, a former friend of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, maintained a house on a non-public island within the territory where he sexually abused many young women through the years. He used money from his JPMorgan accounts to pay women and fly them there.
In its filing Tuesday, JPMorgan noted that when Epstein was released from a Florida jail after pleading guilty to procuring a minor for sex, he tried to rearrange for his parole to be transferred from that state to the Virgin Islands, where he registered as a sex offender. He also maintained his primary residence within the territory, which “put him under USVI law enforcement’s direct jurisdiction and supervision,” the filing said.
The bank alleges there was a “decades-long quid pro quo between Epstein and the USVI government” that took three forms.
“First, high-ranking USVI officials spent years courting and gladly accepting Epstein’s influence in the shape of gifts, favors, and political donations,” the filing said.
“Second, in exchange, USVI granted Epstein preferential treatment in the shape of greater than $ [amount redacted] million in tax incentives, amongst other advantages. Third, and most troublingly, USVI protected Epstein, fostering the right conditions for Epstein’s criminal conduct to proceed undetected.”
Specifically, the filing says Epstein supported the candidacy of Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, after she worked for the USVI Economic Development Authority, which awarded Epstein “massive tax advantages.” Plaskett had also worked at a law firm that represented him in business affairs, the filing says.
Epstein and his employees donated greater than $30,000 to Plaskett’s congressional races, in accordance with the bank.
The filing said that Epstein’s “primary conduit for spreading money and influence through” Virgin Islands government was then-first lady Cecile de Jongh, the wife of former Gov. de Jongh, who served from 2007 through 2015.
And “despite her public role and official duties, First Lady de Jongh managed Epstein’s USVI-based firms … receiving from Epstein a salary, bonuses and other advantages,” the filing said.
Jeffrey Epstein’s former home on the island of Little St. James within the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Emily Michot | Miami Herald | Getty Images
Much of the main points of the claims related to Cecile de Jongh are redacted within the filing, but in a single section the bank says that along with working for his firms she “extensively lobbied on his behalf with government officials, including the governor.”
In one other heavily redacted section, the filing says the Virgin Islands “aided Epstein’s criminal activity.” The precise allegations as to how the federal government did that’s blacked out.
Almost completely redacted is a piece of the filing entitled, “Epstein exerted influence over USVI sex offender laws and received lax monitoring.” In a single unredacted section, the bank’s lawyers wrote, “While the USVI did conduct site visits of Epstein’s residences, those inspections were cursory at best.”
“Despite the direct infusions of lucrative tax incentives, [redacted] and lax enforcement, Epstein still couldn’t freely transport and exploit young women without assistance from USVI government officials,” the filing said.
“In exchange for Epstein’s money and gifts, USVI made life easy for him,” the filing said. “The federal government mitigated any burdens from his sex offender status. And it made sure that nobody asked too many questions on his transport and keeping of young girls on his island.”
The lawsuit against JPMorgan was filed in late December by then-Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George, who a month earlier had obtained a $105 million settlement from Epstein’s estate. Days after she filed that suit, Bryan fired George, who had been attorney general for 4 years.
The governor fired George reportedly because she did not alert him that she planned to sue JPMorgan, which is the most important bank in america.
Despite George’s firing, the Virgin Islands has continued to aggressively pursue its litigation against the bank.
On Tuesday, there was one other in a series of personal telephone conferences with Rakoff over the case.
A public docket entry summarized the final result of that conference, which included lawyers for the Virgin Islands, JPMorgan, former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley and an Epstein accuser who has a separate, similar lawsuit pending against the bank. JPMorgan is attempting to shift any legal liability it can have within the suit to Staley, who was a degree of contact for Epstein on the bank.
“The deposition of Albert Bryan, Jr. is ordered to proceed on June 6,” that docket entry says.
The entry also says that “all parties apart from JP Morgan are ordered to contact former officers and directors of JP Morgan only through counsel.”
CNBC requested comment from lawyers for the Virgin Islands and from JPMorgan in regards to the conference Tuesday.
Charges against Jeffrey Epstein were announced on July 8, 2019 in Recent York City. Epstein will likely be charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to interact in sex trafficking of minors.
Stephanie Keith | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Epstein, 66, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019, a month after he was arrested and charged in Manhattan federal court with child sex trafficking.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a Florida state charge of soliciting sex from an underage girl and was sentenced to 13 months in jail.
His prior criminal case and stint in jail, which were known to JPMorgan on the time, got here in the midst of his tenure as a customer of the bank, where he maintained accounts from 1998 until the bank severed its relationship with him in 2013.
Epstein became a customer of Deutsche Bank after that.
Deutsche Bank last week agreed to settle a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed by one other Epstein accuser who alleged that bank enabled and benefited from his sex trafficking. Deutsche Bank pays Epstein victims $75 million in that deal.
Deutsche Bank in 2020 agreed to pay a $150 million fantastic to Recent York’s financial regulator for its dealings with Epstein and other issues.
“We acknowledge our error onboarding Epstein in 2013, and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and our shortcomings,” bank spokesman Dylan Riddle said last week.
— CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.
Correction: Some previous headlines for this story were updated to reflect the right spelling of Jeffrey Epstein’s name.
