MANHATTAN (CN) — JPMorgan Chase will pay $290 million to privately settle a federal class action brought by victims of underage sex trafficking and abuse by pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, the company announced Monday morning.
The settlement is a course reversal for the global bank, which has long denied that it knowingly ignored red flags about the wealthy financier’s decadeslong international sex trafficking operation to reap the financial benefits that flowed from providing him with financial services.
“We all now understand that Epstein’s behavior was monstrous, and we believe this settlement is in the best interest of all parties, especially the survivors, who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of this man,” JPMorgan Chase said in a written statement early Monday.
“A settlement of this size finally acknowledges the magnitude of the suffering of Epstein’s victims, the degree to which our system is broken, and the extent of Epstein’s influence to corrupt our system,” Edwards Henderson Lehrman attorney Brittany Henderson said Monday morning.
Just over six months ago, the victims law firm with offices in New York and Florida partnered with Boies Schiller to represent an anonymous victim of Epstein's in a federal complaint against JPMorgan filed in the Southern District of New York. Referred to as Jane Doe, the victim said she was sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 and 2013.
Edwards Henderson confirmed the amount of the settlement, which was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.
JPMorgan also faced related claims brought by lawyers at Motley Rice and the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which was the longtime home of Epstein's private island residence off St. Thomas where he engaged in sex trafficking.
Both lawsuits said JPMorgan provided Epstein loans and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013, even though it was aware of his participation in sex trafficking. Indeed, Epstein remained a client during these years despite the fact that he was arrested and pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008 in Florida.
By turning a blind eye to Epstein’s known sexual predation, the complaints said JPMorgan elected to maintain profits and develop new clients and business through Epstein’s network rather than preventing harm and trauma.
The settlement with Jane Doe arrives on the same day that U.S. District Judge Red Rakoff granted her class standing, meaning future awards would be granted to Doe and other victims.
“We promised to bring full justice to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, and this is a giant step toward fulfilling that promise. Holding a financial institution accountable for facilitating sex trafficking had never been done before now,” Brad Edwards at Edwards Henderson said Monday morning. “Let’s hope it is the last time we ever need to do that.”
Lurid accusations against Epstein loomed for years but were swept out of the public eye for a time by a sweetheart nonprosecution agreement that he reached in Florida while pleading guilty to considerably more lenient state charges.
It would be another decade before Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then assaulting them at his homes in Florida and New York.
Epstein hanged himself in jail while awaiting trial on those charges.
Germany's Deutsche Bank, which did business with Epstein from 2013 to 2018, agreed in May to pay $75 million to settle a separate lawsuit that claimed the lender should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Epstein when he was a client.
Prior to settling the victims claims, Deutsche Bank joined JPMorgan in fighting Epstein-related allegations in the civil cases brought in the Southern District of New York.
JPMorgan Chase sued its former executive Jes Staley in March, alleging in a third-party complaint that he aided in hiding Epstein’s yearslong sex abuse and trafficking to keep the financier as a client.
The New York bank seeks to hold Staley personally liable for any financial penalties that JPMorgan may have to pay in two related cases. It is also seeking to force Staley to pay back wages he earned during the time he allegedly was aware of the abuse and “personally observed” Epstein’s behavior on multiple occasions.
Staley left JPMorgan in 2013 to become CEO of London-based bank Barclays. He resigned last year following a report by British regulators into his past links with Epstein.
Ghislaine Maxwell, a former girlfriend of Epstein's, was later convicted for her leadership role in the sex trafficking ring and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
At trial in the Southern District of New York, prosecutors documented how Maxwell earned some $30.7 million in the early and mid-2000s by facilitating, as well as sometimes participating in, Epstein's abuse of girls and young women.
In August 2021, the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program announced it had awarded nearly $125 million to approximately 150 eligible claimants, roughly one year after the program launched on June 25, 2020.
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