The lawsuit accuses JP Morgan of continuing to service Jeffrey Epstein and his multiple accounts with the bank over a 15-year period even after learning about allegations that the convicted sex offender trafficked young women and girls around the U.S.
J.P. Morgan will pay some of Jeffrey Epstein's victims $290 million as part of a tentative settlement agreement, lawyers for both parties said in a statement released on Monday.
This comes seven months after one unidentified victim filed a lawsuit against the nation's largest bank in federal court.
The lawsuit accuses J.P. Morgan of continuing to service Jeffrey Epstein and his multiple accounts with the bank over a 15-year period even after learning about allegations that the convicted sex offender trafficked young women and girls to his homes in New York City, Palm Beach, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
J.P. Morgan's decision to settle the suit comes on the same day that the judge in case officially certified the class in the proceedings.
CLASS CERTIFICATION JANE DOE 1 V JP MORGAN
Inside Edition Digital obtained a copy of that order, which labels the class as: "All women who were sexually abused or trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein during the time when JP Morgan maintained [accounts] for Epstein and/or Epstein-related entities, which included January 1, 1998, through on or about August
19, 2013, both dates inclusive, and continuing to the time of Epstein’s death on August 10, 2019."
A lawyer who previously represented Epstein victims in a separate case estimated that this would qualify just over 100 women to receive a portion of this settlement.
This does not mark the end of J.P. Morgan's legal battles over their association with Epstein however, as the bank is still involved in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands.
J.P Morgan denies any wrongdoing in connection to the suit filed against the bank by the Virgin Islands.
The suit also accuses the bank of willfully ignoring red flags and not reporting suspicious activity because of Epstein's wealth and his network of wealthy friends who he referred to J.P. Morgan.
New emails were filed in that lawsuit on Monday, in which employees of the bank express their concerns about Epstein's status as sex offender years before J.P. Morgan decided to cut ties.
An internal memo that prosecutors claim was circulated among staff at the bank shows that in 2011 employees knew that Epstein, by then a convicted sex offender and felon, was under investigation for human trafficking.
The bank still did not end their relationship with Epstein and also, according to lawyers for the Virgin Islands, never alerted authorities to any of his concerning transactions.
News articles about Jeffrey Epstein purchasing a 14-year-old girl from Europe were allegedly included in J.P. Morgan's due diligence reports about the pedophile, according to an amended complaint filed in connection with a lawsuit against the bank by lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands.
That lawsuit also alleges that the largest bank in the country transferred over $600,000 from accounts controlled by Epstein into the girl's own personal J.P. Morgan account.
"Like other women who received payments from Epstein, Jane Doe 1 listed Epstein’s apartments on 66th Street in New York City as her address, which should have been a red flag to JP Morgan," reads the lawsuit.
J.P. Morgan began doing business with Epstein as early as 1998 according to the lawsuit, and managed approximately 55 accounts for him, which were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. J.P. Morgan parted ways with Epstein in 2013, keeping him on as a client for five years after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor in the state of Florida, according to the complaint.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York. He was found dead in a jail cell one month after his arrest of what the medical examiner later determined to be suicide.
J.P. MORGAN ANSWER TO SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT AND STATEMENT OF AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES
"J.P. Morgan facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of—and were in fact part of—a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude of dozens of women and girls in and beyond the Virgin Islands," the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands alleges. "Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JP Morgan."
J.P. Morgan released a statement on Monday after news broke of the settlement, saying: "We all now understand that Epstein's behavior 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."
That statementwent on to say: "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."
