JPMorgan Chase was aware by 2006 that Jeffrey Epstein had been accused of paying cash to have “underage girls and young women” brought to his home — seven years before the bank dropped him as a client, legal filings in New York on Wednesday alleged.
Mary Erdoes, now head of asset management at the US bank, said under oath in a recent deposition that JPMorgan knew about the accusations by 2006, lawyers wrote in newly unredacted portions of a lawsuit filed against the bank by the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein had a home.
“In 2010, JPMorgan compliance officials decided that Epstein ‘should go’,” according to the filings. The bank eventually ended its relationship with Epstein in 2013.
The USVI is seeking damages from JPMorgan, claiming it benefited from human trafficking by continuing to keep Epstein as a client even after he was arrested in 2006 on a state charge of procuring a minor for prostitution in Florida. The disgraced financier died by suicide in 2019 while in jail awaiting trial on federal charges.
Lawyers for the USVI provided details of internal emails in the years following the arrest between JPMorgan employees and executives, including Erdoes and Jes Staley, who handled the bank’s relationship with Epstein.
The 66-year-old Staley, who later became the boss of Barclays, is being sued by JPMorgan after an alleged Epstein victim said he had personally abused her. Staley has denied the allegations, describing them as “slanderous” and “baseless but serious”.
The emails contained references to news stories about Epstein’s alleged participation in child trafficking and the abuse of girls as young as 14, the USVI said.
A JPMorgan compliance memo sent in 2011 noted that “Epstein had settled a dozen civil lawsuits out of court from his victims regarding solicitation for an undisclosed amount”. A senior compliance official wrote that there was “Lots of smoke. Lots of questions.”
Another message sent in 2011 promised to “monitor the accounts and cash usage closely going forward”, the complaint added. Epstein withdrew large amounts of cash every year during the time he banked with JPMorgan, the USVI claimed. That included “more than $800,000 per year in 2004 and 2005”.
Erdoes testified that the decision to terminate Epstein as a customer was made after “she became aware that the withdrawals were ‘actual cash’,” the USVI said, referring to paper banknotes.
The USVI has previously alleged that senior JPMorgan executives joked about Epstein’s proclivities. In its filing on Wednesday, the territory claimed that in 2008 Erdoes received an email asking her whether Epstein was at an event “with Miley Cyrus”, who was no older than 16 at the time.
The filing comes days after longstanding chief executive Jamie Dimon told CNN that JPMorgan has “some of the best lawyers in the world” working in compliance “who review all of these things and make decisions at the time based on what they know”.
When asked if the bank should have kept Epstein as a client after his 2008 conviction, Dimon added “hindsight is a fabulous gift”.
Dimon is set to be questioned under oath next month about his knowledge of the decision to retain Epstein. He has denied being involved in any review of Epstein’s account.
JPMorgan declined to comment. It has previously described the lawsuit as meritless. One person familiar with the matter said the bank became aware of the accusations after reading newspaper reports of Epstein’s arrest.
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