Ignoring Due Diligence, Paying the Price
"We all now understand that Epstein's behaviour 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.""Any association with him was a mistake and we regret it.""We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes."JPMorgan Chase statement"Money, which for far too long flowed with impunity between Jeffrey Epstein's global sex trafficking enterprise and Wall Street's leading banks, is decisively being used for good.""The settlements signal that financial institutions have an important role to play in spotting and shutting down sex trafficking."Sigrid McCawley, attorney for Jane Doe
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A tentative settlement was announced by JPMorgan Chase & Co.with the victims of infamous sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The bank had been accused of being the financial conduit allowing the well-connected financier to continue conducting his sex trafficking operation, so popular with many of his high-profile contacts in the world of U.S. politics, high society and the British royal aristocracy, among many others.
The notorious trafficker was accused of paying underage girls for massages then molesting them at his palatial homes in Florida and New York; arrested on federal charges in 2019. In August of that year, while in prison, he was found dead in his jail cell at age 66, his death ruled a suicide by a medical examiner.
JPMorgan was held financially liable through a lawsuit filed in November in Manhattan federal court; aiding and abetting Epstein's decades-long abuse of teenage girls and young women. Another, related lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands where yet another of his properties was located. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified for the case in a deposition denying knowing of Epstein and his crimes until the 2019 arrest.
Not yet formally approved by the judge in the case, the proposed settlement totals $290 million. The lawsuits assert that JPMorgan provided Epstein with loans, regularly allowing him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through to August 2013 even though there was awareness of his sex trafficking enterprise. Jane Doe, the anonymous victim in the suit, described being sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 to 2013.
A ruling in favour of making Doe's lawsuit into a class-action lawsuit for all Epstein's sex crimes victims took effect as well. Despite the fact that the man had been arrested, pleading guilty in 2008 to sex crimes in Florida, the bank continued to consider Epstein a client. New York State enacted a temporary law allowing adult victims of sexual abuse to sue those whose abuse they had suffered, even abuse that occurred in the past, leading to both lawsuits being filed.
JPMorgan Chase is pursuing its own lawsuit against its former executive Jes Staley, claiming the former JPMorgan executive hid Epstein's crimes to retain him as a client. Staley had left JPMorgan in 2013, becoming CEO of British bank Barclays, stepping down from that role in 2021 when his prior relationship with Epstein had been exposed.
Labels: Cries of Innocence, Jeffrey Epstein, JPMorgan Chase &Co. Reparations, Sex Crimes, Sex Trafficking
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, June 15, 2023
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