Employees of JPMorgan Chase internally flagged large cash withdrawals made by Jeffrey Epstein two years before he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, according to court papers filed Wednesday.
In 2006, the bank’s risk management team noted that Epstein “routinely” took out cash in $40,000 to $80,000 increments, several times a month, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a filing by the US Virgin Islands in an amended lawsuit against the bank.
The sex-trafficking pedophile was pulling out more than $750,000 per year in cash, according to the lawsuit.
Epstein was first charged with a sex crime in 2006. He pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008 and spent about 13 months in prison. JPMorgan continued providing services to Epstein until 2013, when it says it closed his accounts. Epstein died in jail of an apparent suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
The U.S. Virgin Islands sued JPMorgan late last year in a Manhattan federal court, saying the bank facilitated Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking. The suit alleges the financier used the bank to pay his victims with cash and wire transfers, transactions that should have been concerning to the bank. Another lawsuit filed by an unnamed woman who accused Epstein of sexual abuse also accuses the bank of failing to monitor his transactions. The cases are running together in Manhattan federal court. -WSJ
According to the lawsuit, JPMorgan could have alerted law enforcement to Epstein’s large withdrawals via suspicious activity reports (SARs), typically filed when a client makes sizeable cash withdrawals or transactions that could indicate crimes such as money laundering.
JPMorgan head of asset and wealth management, Mary Erdoes, said in a deposition that JPMorgan execs knew as early as 2006 that Epstein was accused of paying cash to have underage girls and young women brought to his house, the filing continues, adding that Epstein’s behavior was so well known that bank employees joked about his interest in young girls.
In 2008, the filing says, Ms. Erdoes received an email asking whether Epstein was at an event with pop star Miley Cyrus, a minor at the time.
Ms. Erdoes and a JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment. The bank previously has said Ms. Erdoes wouldn’t overrule the bank’s compliance officials to protect a customer and “has only one recollection of formally meeting with [Epstein], which was the day she fired him as a client.” -WSJ
The bank, meanwhile, has pinned the blame on former executive Jes Staley, who JPMorgan filed a lawsuit against last month accusing him of having “affirmatively misrepresented the true facts of his and Epstein’s personal interactions.”
Staley, who emailed Epstein in 2010 to tell him to “Say hello to Snow White,” after saying “That was fun,” and that he’d like to try “Beauty and the Beast” next, claims he had no idea about Epstein’s proclivities.
That same year, JPMorgan compliance officers concluded that Epstein “should go,” according to the Wednesday filing.
In 2011, a senior compliance official spoke out against loaning Epstein money in relation to a modeling agency accused of bringing underage girls into the US.
“I would like to know if in fact he is managing anyone’s money at this point or is it all his money,” wrote the official, who noted that Epstein was no longer managing billionaire Leslie Wexner’s money. The compliance officer also noted that Epstein provided money and credit cards for two 18-year-olds in 2004 – one of whom received $450,000 from Epstein, according to the complaint.
Epstein also deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars into one victim’s accounts, and another unnamed “recruiter,” following his 2008 case.
One JPMorgan compliance department official referred to Epstein as a “Sugar Daddy!”
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For those interested in learning about Dimon’s links to Epstein from the one and only @_whitneywebb:https://t.co/QN3nUe26n9
— Natalie Brunell ⚡️ (@natbrunell) April 13, 2023
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/13/2023 – 14:25
