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JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $75 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle claims that it facilitated the actions of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted intercourse offender who died by suicide in 2019, in accordance with statements launched by the events on Tuesday.
The tentative settlement comes simply weeks earlier than a scheduled trial in federal courtroom in Manhattan on the U.S. territory’s declare that the financial institution enabled Mr. Epstein’s intercourse trafficking operation of teenage women and younger girls for practically 15 years.
The financial institution additionally mentioned in its assertion that it had reached a confidential settlement with James E. Staley, a former high banker who had been one of many greatest advocates for preserving Mr. Epstein as a shopper.
JPMorgan, the nation’s largest financial institution, already agreed in June to pay $290 million to the practically 200 victims of Mr. Epstein in a class-action lawsuit that mirrored most of the claims raised by the Virgin Islands.
The U.S. Virgin Islands sued JPMorgan in December, and a couple of month later, attorneys for Mr. Epstein’s victims sued the financial institution. The U.S. territory mentioned it was looking for as much as $190 million in compensation from the financial institution, which it claimed had ignored warning indicators about Mr. Epstein’s actions and selected to look the opposite method as a result of he generated enterprise for it.
The cash the financial institution is paying to the Virgin Islands, the place Mr. Epstein had a personal island residence for roughly 20 years, will principally go towards funding charitable causes within the U.S. territory within the Caribbean and paying lawyer charges. The settlement, the financial institution mentioned, particularly requires $30 million to go to native charities that assist native victims of intercourse crimes and $25 million to assist regulation enforcement struggle intercourse trafficking and different crimes.
The Virgin Islands mentioned that $10 million of the overall was being aimed toward offering psychological well being assist for Epstein victims.
Mr. Epstein killed himself in a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal intercourse trafficking expenses. Mr. Epstein had been a shopper of JPMorgan each earlier than and after he pleaded responsible in 2008 to a cost of soliciting prostitution from a teenage lady and needed to register as a intercourse offender in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands.
The financial institution agreed to settle with the Virgin Islands after months of embarrassing disclosures about how high executives continued to maintain Mr. Epstein on as a shopper regardless of quite a few warning indicators that he was paying massive sums of cash to teenage women and younger girls with none good clarification.
The events, nonetheless, took concern with how either side had characterised among the phrases of the settlement of their respective information releases.
The Virgin Islands authorities mentioned in an announcement that the financial institution made “substantial commitments” as a part of the settlement to bolstering its techniques to detect and deter intercourse trafficking. However JPMorgan mentioned in a follow-up assertion that the settlement contained “no new commitments” and that the financial institution merely agreed to proceed work on “earlier and ongoing efforts to struggle human trafficking.”
The financial institution dismissed Mr. Epstein as a shopper in 2013 however solely after Mr. Staley, the previous head of JPMorgan’s non-public financial institution, left for an additional job.
The financial institution sued Mr. Staley, additionally a former chief government of Barclays, shortly after the U.S. Virgin Islands filed its lawsuit. The financial institution had been looking for reimbursement for a few of its value related to the litigation. The financial institution mentioned the phrases of the settlement with Mr. Staley had been confidential.
Representatives for Mr. Staley declined to remark.
JPMorgan mentioned its settlement with the Virgin Islands didn’t contain any admission of legal responsibility. The financial institution, because it has mentioned earlier than, reiterated in its assertion that it “deeply regrets any affiliation” with Mr. Epstein.
The settlement consists of $20 million in lawyer charges, which the Virgin Islands will use to pay Motley Rice, a giant U.S. plaintiffs agency that has a retainer settlement with the federal government.
The Virgin Islands beforehand reached a $105 million settlement with the property of Mr. Epstein and a $62.5 million settlement with the Wall Avenue billionaire Leon Black, who was the one greatest shopper of Mr. Epstein’s essential cash making enterprise in St. Thomas.
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