The U.S. Virgin Islands is seeking at least $190 million in damages from JPMorgan Chase in its lawsuit over its ties to Jeffrey Epstein, who kept money at the bank from 1998 to 2013, according to a court filing.
The territory sued the largest U.S. bank last year alleging it facilitated the disgraced financier’s sex trafficking enterprise and failed to flag suspicious financial activity. In June, JP Morgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to settle a similar lawsuit filed by Epstein survivors.
In the court filing, the U.S. Virgin Islands said it wants $150 million in civil penalties and $40 million in fees and revenues that Epstein generated for JPMorgan Chase while he was a client, including from referring “many ultra-high net worth clients to the bank.” The territory also requested the bank implement new policies to prevent human trafficking in the future.
The suggested safeguards included separating the JPMorgan Chase’s business and compliance units and designating an independent compliance consultant to guarantee the bank “does not prioritize profits over its duty to report suspicious activities,” the territory said in a statement.
“We are pursuing this enforcement action because JPMorgan Chase’s institutional failure enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, and JPMorgan Chase must make significant changes to detect, report and stop human trafficking,” said U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general Ariel Smith.
Smith added, “financial penalties, as well as conduct changes, are important to make sure that JPMorgan Chase knows the cost of putting its own profits ahead of public safety.”
The attorney general said in the statement that the U.S. Virgin Islands will dedicate funds recovered in the case to support victims of human trafficking in the territory if its suit is successful. The U.S. Virgin Islands also asked the bank to cover its legal fees incurred from the lawsuit.
The U.S. Virgin Island’s court filing is the first time the territory has disclosed the dollar amount it is seeking from the bank. The court document comes after the judge overseeing the case ordered the plaintiffs last week to disclose the amount of damages it seeks in the case. The trial is set to begin October 23.
In a statement a JP Morgan Chase spokesperson said “this document does not reflect the nature of settlement conversations. As for the USVI’s misdirected damages theories, they are not well founded and are being challenged by JPM in court.”
JPMorgan Chase has denied liability, but has said previously that any association with Epstein was a “mistake and we regret it.”
The head of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, also said in a deposition last month that he never met the disgraced financier and had never even heard of him until his arrest in 2019.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. He died by suicide in 2019 at a New York City correctional center, where he was being held on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
