NEW YORK (AP) — Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase are asking a federal court to throw out a lawsuit that says the big banks must see evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein, the high-profile financier who killed himself in jail while facing criminal charges. .
The banks said last Friday that they did not act negligently to harm the woman who filed the lawsuit and that the lawsuit failed to show that they benefited from Epstein’s sex trade.
The filing in federal district court in New York comes about a month after two women identified as Jane Doe sued banks and the government of the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein has a home on a small island he owns.
The lawsuit, which is seeking class action status to represent Epstein’s other victims, alleges that the banks knowingly benefited from Epstein’s sex trade and “chose profit over law enforcement” to get millions of dollars from financiers.
He suggested that the banks should have gotten rid of Epstein after his arrest in Florida in 2006 — he eventually pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution — and the resulting federal investigation and news coverage.
“Without the participation of financial institutions, Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme could not exist or thrive,” the lawsuit says.
JPMorgan Chase said Friday that Jane Doe in the case “has a right to justice …
Deutsche Bank said it provided “routine banking services” to Epstein from 2013 to 2018, and the lawsuit “does not sufficiently establish that Deutsche Bank … was part of Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring.”