The US Virgin Islands has doubled down on allegations that JPMorgan Chase & Co. and former chief of private wealth Jes Staley facilitated the sex trade for Jeffrey Epstein.
The Virgin Islands, which sued the bank last month, filed an amended complaint in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday alleging that Staley had a “deep” friendship with Epstein and may have been involved in a sex-trafficking ring.
Attorneys for Staley, who was not named as a defendant in the suit, responded Wednesday to deny allegations that the banker helped facilitate sex trafficking.
Staley was forced to step down as chief executive of Barclays Plc in 2021 amid a British regulatory probe into how he described his relationship with Epstein, who was found dead in a US prison cell in 2019.
Charity fund
Epstein and Staley exchanged about 1,200 emails over a 10-year period, according to the amended complaint. It offers details about the business relationship between the two, including a plan to negotiate in 2011 between Staley and Epstein to establish a “very HIGH profile” charity fund. Epstein, in the amended complaint, said the idea was an “exclusive club” with a minimum donation of $100 million and that JPMorgan would serve as a fiduciary.
JPMorgan “allowed Staley to remain a decision maker on Epstein’s account,” according to the amended complaint.
A spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan declined to comment.
During his tenure as a JPMorgan customer between 1998 and 2013, the bank serviced about 55 accounts for Epstein containing “hundreds of millions of dollars,” the amended complaint said. Those accounts were used to pay Epstein’s victims — in one, $600,000 — and recruiters who helped find them, the USVI said.
Red Flag
Such transactions, including offshore transfers and foreign currency conversions, should raise red flags, the USVI said. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for what it calls violations of sex trafficking, bank secrecy and consumer laws.
The USVI lawsuit makes similar claims to those contained in a class action filed in November by Epstein’s victims against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank AG.
The office of USVI Attorney General Denise George, who was removed from her position at the end of 2022 just days after the lawsuit was filed, conducted an investigation into Epstein’s activities and presented its findings to JPMorgan in September. According to the complaint, the USVI investigation found that the bank “pulled the levers that paid for recruiters and victims” and were unable to operate Epstein’s trafficking enterprise.
Epstein has spent decades cultivating the very rich including lingerie titan Les Wexner and the founder of Apollo Global Management Inc. Leon Black, who paid him more than $150 million for financial advice.
Wexner said she ended her relationship with Epstein in 2007 and later accused him of lying and misappropriating “a lot of money from me and my family.” Black made it clear he had no knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of underage girls and a report by the Dechert law firm commissioned by the Apollo board, said he was not involved in Epstein’s criminal activities. Black, who is worth $10.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, was forced to resign as chairman of Apollo.
Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking by Manhattan federal prosecutors in 2019 and his ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was indicted on similar charges in December 2021.
During the trial, a JPMorgan banker testified that Epstein sent $31 million, prosecutors said, as payment for Maxwell to take young girls to the financier.
The case is USVI v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, 22-cv-10904-UA, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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