U.S. Virgin Islands demands US$190M from JPMorgan in Epstein case
NEW YORK –
The U.S. Virgin Islands mentioned it desires JPMorgan Chase to pay no less than US$190 million, and presumably way more, to resolve its lawsuit accusing the most important U.S. financial institution of ignoring the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s intercourse trafficking.
In a Friday submitting in federal court docket in Manhattan, the territory mentioned it desires JPMorgan to pay a US$150 million civil nice, and quit no less than $40 million from its 15-year relationship with Epstein.
It additionally desires JPMorgan to pay damages to compensate Epstein’s victims, pay punitive damages, separate its business and compliance capabilities, and rent a compliance guide.
“Financial penalties, as well as conduct changes, are important to make sure that JPMorgan Chase knows the cost of putting its own profits ahead of public safety,” U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Ariel Smith mentioned in a press release.
JPMorgan had no quick remark.
Friday’s submitting marks the primary time the U.S. Virgin Islands has put a greenback determine on its lawsuit.
The territory desires JPMorgan held chargeable for offering banking providers to Epstein from 1998 to 2013, enabling him to pay his victims, and ignoring inside warnings and different crimson flags as a result of it valued him as a rich shopper.
It mentioned even the US$40 million quantity excludes the “difficult to quantify” worth of Epstein allegedly introducing JPMorgan to well-known folks like Britain’s Prince Andrew and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.
Epstein, who died by suicide in August 2019, had owned two neighbouring islands inside the territory, together with one which authorities mentioned he purchased to maintain folks from spying on him as he sexually abused younger girls and women on the opposite.
A trial is scheduled for Oct. 23.
LARGE PAYOUTS
The lawsuit is the most important unresolved Epstein-related case.
JPMorgan agreed final month to pay US$290 million to settle a lawsuit by dozens of Epstein accusers, whereas Deutsche Bank, the place Epstein was additionally a shopper, agreed in May to a $75 million settlement. Both accords await remaining court docket approval.
Epstein’s property, in the meantime, has paid out greater than US$125 million to the financier’s accusers, and greater than $105 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The financier’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in Dec. 2021 for aiding in his abuses.
In the U.S. Virgin Islands case, JPMorgan has sought to shift blame.
It accused the territory of “actively facilitating” Epstein by giving him tax incentives and waiving intercourse offender monitoring necessities, in alternate for money or items to native police and prime officers like former first girl Cecile de Jongh.
JPMorgan is individually suing Jes Staley, a former non-public banking and funding banking chief as soon as near Epstein, to cowl its losses within the two lawsuits it faces.
Staley has expressed remorse for his friendship with Epstein and repeatedly denied figuring out about his intercourse trafficking.
He left JPMorgan just a few months after Epstein, and was British financial institution Barclays’ chief govt from 2015 to 2021.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Nupur Anand and Luc Cohen in New York; modifying by Jonathan Oatis and Deepa Babington)
