Photo of Jamie Dimon courtesy of The Global Financial Context.
CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, will be facing a judicial examination of his bank’s relationship with the deceased sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein in two civil lawsuits. The lawsuits claim the investment bank was profiting off of its relationship with the late billionaire as he victimized young girls, according to several media sources. The lawsuits were brought against both the Wall Street bank, as well as the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island residence.
Epstein, who died while being held in detention awaiting a trial on sex-trafficking charges, was a client of the investment bank for 15 years, between 1998 and 2013. During his last five years as a client of the bank he was also a convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting a prostitute, and procuring a child for prostitution.
The lawsuits against JPMorgan Chase allege that CEO Dimon had ignored internal warnings about Epstein’s propensity for illegal behavior, and knowingly allowed the bank to continue to facilitate that behavior through doing business with him and facilitating his financial transactions.
The financial times reported that investigators for the plaintiff state that during a review of materials during a pre-trial process, they found communications between JPMorgan employees which referred to a “Dimon review” of the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. However the bank denies Dimon had any knowledge of any such review. A source inside the bank stated an internal review of the matter showed no evidence that Dimon ever had any direct communication with Epstein.
Reportedly, Dimon has agreed to be interviewed under oath about the lawsuit’s allegations, and a sworn deposition is presently scheduled for May, behind closed doors.
JPMorgan has not commented on the reports. The trial has a provisional start date for the cases in October.
There are also separate lawsuits filed against Deutsche Bank, which also provided financial services to Epstein from 2013 to 2018.
