(Bloomberg) — The US Virgin Islands has doubled down on allegations that JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its former private wealth chief Jes Staley facilitated sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein.
(Bloomberg) — The US Virgin Islands has doubled down on allegations that JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its former private wealth chief Jes Staley facilitated sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein.
The Virgin Islands, which sued the bank last month, filed an amended complaint in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday claiming that Staley had a “profound” friendship with Epstein and may have been involved in his sex-trafficking ring.
A lawyer for Staley, who isn’t named as a defendant in the suit, responded Wednesday that the banker wasn’t involved with sex trafficking.
Staley was forced to step down as chief executive officer of Barclays Plc in 2021 amid a UK regulatory probe into how he characterized his past ties to Epstein, who was found dead in his US jail cell in 2019.
Epstein and Staley exchanged about 1,200 emails over the course of 10 years, according to the amended complaint. It offers details about the business relationship between the two, including a plan discussed in 2011 between Staley and Epstein to establish a “very HIGH profile” charitable fund. Epstein, the amended complaint says, pitched the idea as an “exclusive club” with a minimum $100 million donation and that JPMorgan would act as the fiduciary.
JPMorgan “allowed Staley to remain a decision maker on Epstein’s accounts,” according to the amended complaint.
A spokesperson for New York-based JPMorgan declined to comment.
Read More: Staley’s Epstein Ties Pose Yet More Questions for Barclays Board
During his tenure as a JPMorgan customer between 1998 and 2013, the bank serviced about 55 accounts for Epstein containing “hundred of millions of dollars,” the amended complaint states. The accounts were used to pay Epstein’s victims — in one instance, $600,000 — and the recruiters who helped find them, the USVI alleges.
The transactions, including offshore transfers and foreign currency conversions, should have raised red flags, the USVI claims. The suit is seeking unspecified damages for what it says were violations of sex-trafficking, bank-secrecy and consumer laws.
The USVI suit makes similar claims to those contained in proposed class actions filed in November by Epstein victims against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank AG.
Epstein for decades cultivated the ultra-wealthy including billionaires Les Wexner and Leon Black. He was arrested and charged with sex-trafficking by Manhattan federal prosecutors in 2019 and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of similar charges in December 2021.
During her trial, a JPMorgan banker testified that Epstein wired her $31 million, money prosecutors characterized as Maxwell’s payment for procuring young girls for the financier.
The case is USVI v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, 22-cv-10904-UA, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
Read More: Jeffrey’s World: Maxwell Jurors Immersed in Extreme Wealth, Sex
–With assistance from Jonathan Browning, Harry Wilson and Tom Metcalf.
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