JPMorgan reported to the Treasury more than $1 billion in deals with Epstein

JPMorgan Chase informed the Treasury Department of more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Jeffrey Epstein dating back 16 years after the notorious sexual predator killed himself in 2019, a U.S. Virgin Islands lawyer told a federal judge during of a hearing on Thursday, according to reports.

“All of Epstein’s dealings with JPMorgan and all of JPMorgan’s dealings with Epstein were human trafficking,” Virgin Islands attorney Mimi Liu told Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, according to the Daily Beast.

Liu cited the bank’s notification to the Treasury Department, saying Rakoff should issue summary judgment against JPMorgan, which is being sued by the Virgin Islands government for allegedly facilitating Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women while he was a client of the bank from 1998 to 2013.

Lawyer, referring to blockage of $9 million in transfers to women and suspicious withdrawals from Epstein’s accounts at JPMorgan, said it was linked to ‘facilitating’ more than 20,000 acts sex, The Daily Beast reported, given Epstein’s habit of paying several hundred dollars for each. sexual encounter.

“JPMorgan was a full-service bank for the sex trafficking of Jeffrey Epstein,” Liu said during the hearing, Bloomberg reported.

“The only reason JPMorgan reported, 16 years later, the $1 billion suspicious transactions is because he was arrested and then died,” Liu said, according to Bloomberg.

She accused the bank of continuing to do business with Epstein for years despite repeated internal red flags and his 2008 guilty plea to a Florida sex crime, the report said.

Epstein, 66, killed himself in a New York prison in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges. In addition to a residence in Manhattan, Epstein owned a private island in the Virgin Islands, where he was accused of sexually abusing women.

A lawyer for JPMorgan, who denies any wrongdoing in the case, has dismissed claims by the Virgin Islands that it should be held liable for encouraging Epstein’s abuse of women.

The Virgin Islands is seeking at least $190 million in damages in the case, which will go to trial Oct. 23 if Rakoff does not grant summary judgment to either side.

The bank’s attorney, Felicia Ellsworth, told Rakoff that the Virgin Islands had presented “not a shred of evidence” that JPMorgan had violated sex trafficking laws, according to the Daily Beast.

Ellsworth also argued that the Virgin Islands lacked the legal capacity to sue the bank. JPMorgan said the US territory could only sue to enforce residents’ rights, and there was no evidence that any of Epstein’s victims resided in the Virgin Islands.

“There are very controversial testimonies and evidence,” Ellsworth told Rakoff, according to Bloomberg.

A spokeswoman for JPMorgan declined to comment to CNBC on claims by the Virgin Islands that the bank notified the Treasury Department of more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Epstein.

JPMorgan agreed in July to pay $290 million as part of a settlement with Epstein’s victims to resolve a similar lawsuit filed by one of the accusers in federal court in Manhattan.

In June, German Bankwho took on Epstein as a client after he was forced out by JPMorgan in 2013, agreed to pay Epstein’s victims $75 million to settle a third lawsuit in the same court.