US government Virgin Islands In court filing on Friday estimated it could seek at the least $190 million in damages JPMorgan Chase In a lawsuit accusing a serious bank of facilitating sex trafficking by his former longtime client Jeffrey Epstein.
The Virgin Islands also said they wanted an injunction requiring JPMorgan to take a series of steps to guard young women and girls from other predators in the long run.
“These sets of recommendations aim to deal with the identical fundamental problem: JPMorgan’s knowledge of
and Epstein’s failure to report human trafficking because he lacked economic incentive and motivation
prioritize compliance with the law and stopping human trafficking above personal gain,” the lawsuit filed in america District Court in Manhattan reads.
The U.S. Territory also said it could seek further damages, particularly for Epstein’s victims, in addition to the nearly $300 million JPMorgan agreed to pay victims last month to settle the lawsuit of one in all its accusers. The filing didn’t state the quantity of those additional damages from the bank, which vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
The brand new filing comes in response to Judge Jed Rakoff’s request last week that the territory detail the damages it’s searching for in the case, which matches to trial on October 23.
The Virgin Islands lawsuit accuses JPMorgan of making the most of Epstein’s trafficking of young women allegedly abused by him and others through the 15 years he was a client of the biggest bank in america.
The criticism alleges that JPMorgan allowed Epstein to carry many hundreds of thousands of dollars in bank accounts from which he funded trafficking in women, despite quite a few red flags raised about him by bank employees through the years.
“We’re continuing this enforcement motion because JPMorgan Chase’s institutional failure has enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, and JPMorgan Chase must make significant changes to detect, report and stop human trafficking,” U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Ariel Smith said in a Friday statement.
“The financial penalties, in addition to the behavioral changes, are vital to be certain that JPMorgan Chase understands the price of putting its own profits ahead of public safety,” Smith said.
She said if the Virgin Islands won the lawsuit, they’d use the monetary compensation received “to support efforts to strengthen, inform and expand local law enforcement and improve Virgin Islands services for victims of trafficking and other victims of crime.” “.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman, when asked to comment on the filing, indicated for what appears to be the primary time that the bank’s lawyers had discussed a possible settlement of the lawsuit with Virgin Islands lawyers, which might have avoided a lawsuit.
“This document doesn’t reflect the character of settlement talks,” spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said. “As for the USVI misdirected damage theories, they are usually not well founded and are being challenged by JPM in court.”
In civil disputes, it is not uncommon for cases to be settled without trial.
The filing said the Virgin Islands wanted at the least $150 million in civil penalties alone. The filing also says it wants JPMorgan to pay at the least one other $40 million in fees that Epstein has generated for the bank, and that JPMorgan has received “many very high net price customers” that it has referred to the bank.
In line with the report, those people included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Lex Wexner, founding father of Limited Brands and billionaire Glenn Dubin.
A spokesman for Gates contacted CNBC after the article was published and in an email wrote: “Mr. Gates has never been a JP Morgan client.”
Along with monetary damages, the Virgin Islands can be asking JPMorgan to “implement recent policies, including separating business and compliance functions and appointing an independent compliance consultant to forestall human trafficking,” in response to a press release from Smith’s office.
JPMorgan, in its own court records, accused the Virgin Islands themselves of being “complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.”
The bank claims that Epstein gave high officials there money, advice and favors in exchange for a distraction while he trafficked young women to be exploited there.
Epstein had a mansion on a personal island in a territory where accusers say he and others sexually abused them.
Last month, in the identical court where the Virgin Islands are suing the bank, JPMorgan agreed, pleading not guilty, to pay Epstein’s victims $290 million to have the case settled by one in all his accusers.
In May, German bank agreed to pay Epstein’s victims $75 million to settle a separate lawsuit by a prosecutor who accused him of instigating sex trafficking together with her and others. Deutsche Bank took on Epstein as a client after JPMorgan cut ties with him in 2013, years after bank employees first expressed their concerns about him.
Deutsche Bank had previously agreed to pay the Latest York State Department of Financial Services a $150 million tremendous for failing to detect or prevent hundreds of thousands of dollars in suspicious transactions involving Epstein, which included “payments to Russian models and various women with Eastern European names.” was reported on Friday by the Virgin Islands.
Epstein, who was a friend of former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, in addition to Britain’s Prince Andrew, pleaded guilty in 2008 to the state of Florida for soliciting sex from an underage girl. He served 13 months in prison, but most of that point was spent taking day off work every day.
Epstein, then 66, committed suicide in a Latest York federal prison in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.