The U.S. Virgin Islands and a victim of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are seeking court orders that would require JPMorgan Chase to turn over more documents about the bank’s relationship with the late financier.
Plaintiffs in two separate lawsuits alleged JPMorgan has refused to turn over documents from certain time frames, adding that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon had a hand in the bank’s decision to keep Epstein as a client despite numerous red flags, Bloomberg reported.
The USVI, which claims the bank hasn’t turned over documents after 2014, wants documents until August 2019, the month Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Epstein was a client of JPMorgan from 1998 until 2013, but the USVI alleges “some of JPMorgan’s allegedly unlawful conduct continued past the end of its relationship with Epstein,” according to Bloomberg. Further details were redacted from the filing.
The USVI also alleges Dimon was “personally involved both in decisions to retain Epstein’s accounts in the face of acknowledged high-risk activity,” as well as “in meetings and review related to Epstein’s referrals of prominent and high-wealth potential clients,” according to the Financial Times.
Epstein’s victim, who in her proposed class-action lawsuit is known as Jane Doe 1, said the bank had refused to turn over documents from prior to 2006, “claiming that doing so would be unduly burdensome.” According to Thursday’s filing, Epstein provided clients to JPMorgan between 2000 and 2005, and “in exchange, JP Morgan allowed Epstein to do as he pleased with his JP Morgan accounts.”
The bank did not return a request for comment on the filings.
JPMorgan has asked U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff to dismiss both cases, claiming there was no evidence the bank knew of Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Jes Staley, who left JPMorgan in 2013 and later became CEO of Barclays, stepped down from that bank’s top post in 2021 amid an investigation by British regulators into how he characterized his relationship with Epstein.
