The American bank JPMorgan Chase will pay 290 million dollars to alleged victims of the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sexual exploitation of minors, under an agreement announced Monday which avoids him a media trial.
The sum, initially reported by the wall street journalwas confirmed to AFP by one of the victims’ lawyers, David Boies.
“The parties believe that this agreement is in the best interests of all, especially the survivors of Mr. Epstein’s horrific abuse,” said a joint statement to the bank and the alleged victims.
The action initiated in 2022 by a woman whose identity has not been disclosed, accused JPMorgan Chase of having facilitated the actions of Jeffrey Epstein by allowing him to finance his activities. Charges denied by the bank.
The financier, whose origin of fortune is opaque, was a client of JPMorgan Chase between 1998 and 2013, before the establishment finally decided to break their commercial relationship.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Jeffrey Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison in 2008 for leading young girls into prostitution in Florida, according to a secret agreement with a prosecutor allowing him to escape federal prosecution.
Charged and arrested in 2019 for having organized, for several years, a network made up of dozens of young girls under his influence and with whom he had sexual relations in his numerous properties, he committed suicide in prison a few weeks later, before to be judged.
The financial agreement announced Monday comes after a first transaction, mid-May for an amount of 75 million dollars, between Deutsche Bank and victims. They claimed that the German establishment had enabled the alleged sexual predator to remain active thanks to the financial services it had provided to him from 2013.
“These agreements are historic and will change the lives of survivors,” responded Sigrid McCawley, one of the alleged victim’s lawyers. “Money that has, for far too long, flowed between Jeffrey Epstein’s prostitution ring and major Wall Street banks, is now being put to good use. »
According to the lawyer, these decisions “signal that financial institutions have an important role to play in identifying and stopping sex trafficking”.
” Error “
This amicable resolution avoids the bank a civil lawsuit which would have probably occupied the media scene and associated, rightly or wrongly, JPMorgan Chase with the image of Jeffrey Epstein.
The announcement was made the day of Federal Judge Jed Rakoff’s ruling, which allowed the lawsuit to be classified as a class action, or class action, meaning it would have been open to all victims alleged Jeffrey Epstein.
The case had even reached the pd-g. emblematic of the bank, Jamie Dimon, auditioned at length in May as a witness, even if he is not implicated in the file.
Lawyers for the alleged victim had requested that the boss be auditioned again.
A former JPMorgan Chase executive, James “Jes” Staley, is at the center of the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he was friends.
This former boss of the group’s private banking activities (intended for wealthy and institutional clients), who left the bank in 2013, claimed to have mentioned Jeffrey Epstein with Jamie Dimon, which the latter denies. JPMorgan Chase sued him in civil court.
“Any association with him (Epstein) was a mistake and we regret that,” the bank said in a statement provided to AFP. “We would never have continued our relationship with him if we thought he was using our bank to facilitate heinous crimes. »
JPMorgan remains the target of a legal action by the government of the US Virgin Islands, which also accuses the establishment of having provided Jeffrey Epstein with banking services that allowed him to maintain his prostitution network.