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JPMorgan Chase agreed on Tuesday to pay the US Virgin Islands $75 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the Wall Street behemoth enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring by ignoring red flags related to Epstein’s accounts at the investment bank.
The settlement comes just one month before JPMorgan and the USVI were set to go to trial in Manhattan over the bank’s ties to Epstein, which CEO Jamie Dimon reportedly claimed in two-day deposition in May he knew nothing about until the sex offender’s 2019 arrest.
JPMorgan didn’t admit to any wrongdoing as part of the agreement, which will see $30 million contributed to USVI-based charitable organizations and $25 million paid to enhance the USVI’s infrastructure and law enforcement.
JPMorgan will dish out an additional $20 million to cover attorneys’ fees.
“The firm deeply regrets any association with this man, and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he was using the bank in any way to commit his heinous crimes,” JPMorgan said in a statement.
Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for the bank, said the settlement “recognizes that JPMorgan remains committed to previous and ongoing efforts to fight human trafficking through its anti-money laundering (AML) program, and lists a number of processes we previously committed to.”
“There are no new commitments,” Wexler noted. “Our controls, compliance, risk and other functions are always improving, and we are continually investing to become even better.”
Also on Tuesday, JPMorgan reached an agreement with Jes Staley, a former executive who was sued by the bank earlier this year for allegedly failing to disclose information about Epstein’s abusive regime to his bosses.
In the lawsuit, filed in March, JPMorgan said Staley — the ex-chief of Barclays who was forced to step down in 2021 over the Epstein scandal — should personally be held liable for any damages that JPMorgan will have to pay out as part of the lawsuit the banking giant faced against the USVI involving the convicted pedophile.
The terms of JPMorgan’s agreement with Staley, who has maintained his innocence, are confidential.
The Virgin Islands was initially seeking at least $190 million to settle the suit, including $150 million in civil fines and at least $40 million in penalties — more than twice Tuesday’s result.
In June, JPMorgan agreed to pay $290 million to settle a lawsuit with Epstein victims, including an anonymous Jane Doe and other unnamed Epstein accusers over the course of a 15-year period.
Following the latest settlements, JPMorgan concludes its legal saga involving its affiliation with Epstein, which had revealed the bank’s deep ties with the late financier in a series of explosive court filings.
In July, freshly public evidence filed in Manhattan federal court released emails showing a top banker at JPMorgan desperately sought help from Epstein as the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme slammed the bank’s clients in 2008 — despite the fact that Epstein had recently been convicted of sex-trafficking charges.
On Dec. 12, 2008, Mary Erdoes — a star banker who is now the CEO of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division — frantically emailed Staley as the Madoff disaster began to unfold.
“The ny/palm beach community will be in shock. Can you call JE [Jeffrey Epstein] to get the scoop from down there?” Erdoes continued in her email to Staley.
Six months earlier, in June 2008, Epstein had pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Yet Erdoes, who began working for JPMorgan in 1996 and rose to become chief of the bank’s prestigious asset and wealth management business in 2009, continued to work with Epstein until 2013, the USVI alleged in a motion for summary judgment.
“Epstein was a personal resource to Erdoes,” claimed the court documents, which also said that “Erdoes personally sought Epstein’s help in resolving a $600 million tax issue” on behalf of another unidentified individual during his time as a JPMorgan client.
In response to the court documents, filed in July, JPMorgan spokesperson Darin Oduyoye told The Post at the time: “Mary has always held herself and her colleagues to the highest standards of integrity and trust, leading the Asset & Wealth Management business by example.”
The bank didn’t yank Epstein from the client list until 2013, when red flags emerged related to Epstein’s massive cash withdrawals.
Leading up to the Oct. 23 trial, the USVI claimed that JPMorgan maintained a relationship with Epstein through his initial bout in prison and during his sex-trafficking probe because he brought a slew of deep-pocketed clients to JPMorgan.
One of those wealthy individuals was Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who became one of the bank’s biggest clients with investments worth more than $4 billion.
The USVI’s motion for summary judgment also revealed that “Brin became a client of JPMorgan’s San Francisco Private Bank in 2004” — one year after Epstein introduced Brin to Staley.
“The overall Brin relationship is one of the largest in the Private Bank, of +$4BN,” wrote banker Robert A. Keller in a memo, according to the USVI, where Epstein owned multiple private islands, including Little St. James — also known as “pedophile island” — where Epstein and his gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly abused underage girls.
Other members of Epstein’s high-net-worth network he allegedly recruited to the bank: Bill Gates, the sultan of Dubai, Prince Andrew, Hyatt hotel heir Thomas Pritzker, billionaire hedge fund founder Glenn Dubin “and many other ultra-wealthy clients.”
Epstein committed suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.
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