JPMorgan Chase allegedly informed the government of over $1 billion dollars in transactions related to “human trafficking” by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein dating back to 2003, a lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands said.
The Wall Street giant reported the financial activity — which took place over a 16-year period — as “suspicious” to the U.S. Department of Treasury in 2019 after Epstein died by suicide, Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands said at a recent hearing for its lawsuit against the bank, according to a transcript of the public proceeding.
“Epstein’s entire business with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire business with Jeffrey Epstein was human trafficking,” Liu said. “The only reason that JPMorgan finally after 16 years reported the billion dollars in suspicious transactions for Jeffrey Epstein is because he was arrested, and then he was dead.”
Both JPMorgan Chase and the U.S. Department of Treasury didn’t immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment about the territory’s claims.
The allegation drew attention in oral arguments on whether the judge should issue a summary judgment against the bank before the case goes to trial, which is set to begin in October. The territory is asking the judge to find the bank liable for enabling Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise while he was a JPMorgan Chase client from 1998 to 2013. The lawyer for the bank also requested the damages to be determined at trial.
The U.S. Virgin Islands sued the nation’s largest bank in 2022 and they are seeking at least $190 million in damages from JPMorgan Chase.
The bank has denied liability and has said any association with Epstein was a “mistake and we regret it.” The financial institution, meanwhile, has accused the territory of having a close relationship with the disgraced financier. The territory has denied wrongdoing.
JPMorgan Chase agreed to a $290 million settlement in a similar lawsuit with Epstein victims in June.
Liu also pointed out that the bank handled $9 million in transfers to girls and women, many with Eastern European names, and suspicious cash withdrawals from Epstein accounts. During the hearing, the lawyer roughly divided the $9 million by a couple of hundred dollars that Epstein was known to pay victims and recruiters, which she said resulted in over “20,000 unlawful sex acts facilitated by JPMorgan.”
“JPMorgan was a full service bank for Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking,” said Lui.
Felicia Ellsworth, a JPMorgan Chase lawyer, pushed back at the hearing, saying the U.S. Virgin Islands offered “not a scintilla” of evidence that it broke sex trafficking laws. She said the bank flagged the Treasury Department six times, including as early as 2002, about Epstein’s financial activity, and no response or action was taken by the federal government, according to the transcript.
Elsworth also said that it wasn’t proper for the judge to issue a summary judgment before the trial because multiple current and former bank employees testified they didn’t have knowledge of Epstein sex trafficking enterprise.
The judge said he would weigh in on the summary judgment by the end of September.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
