Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Tuesday, June 13, 2023 VIRGIN ISLANDS The Virgin Islands Daily News 3 JPMorgan reaches $29014 settlement with Epstein's victims MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN NeWYorkTimes JPMorgan Chase reached a tentative settlement with sexual abrice victims of lefty Epstein, the deceased financier, after weeks of embarrassing disclosures about the bank's longstanding relationship with him, the bank and law- yers for the victims said in a statement on Monday. David Boles, one of the lead lawyers for the victims, said the bank was prepared to pay $290 million to resolve the lawsuit The parties ini- tially had agreed not to dis- close the settlement amount in Jeffrey Epstein their joint statement, as it was set to.be included in a court filing within the next week The proposed deal would settle a lawsuit filed last November in Manhattan federal court by an unidentified wom- an on behalf of victims who were sexually abused by Epstein over a roughly 15-year period when JP they were teenage girls and young women, the suit said. The number of victims could potentially rise to more than 100. In the statement, the bank and the lawyers for the victims said they had reached "an agreement in principle to settle" the lawsuit on behalf of the victims and the "settlement is in the best interests of all parties, especially the survivors who Were the victims of Epstein's terrible abuse" The settlement agreeri ant was reached roughly two weeks after Jamie Dimon, JP,Morgans chief executive and one of Wall Street best-known bankers, sat for a daylong deposition in which he said he had barely heard of Epstein before the fi- nancier's July 2019 arrest on federal sex traffick- ing charges. Epstein killed himself in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell a month after his arrest' JPMorgan still faces a related lawsuit by the U.S. Virgin Islands government That suit re- mains the biggest outstanding Epstein-related case after years of lawsuits against Epstein's es- tate and Ghislaine Maxwell's conviction in 2021 in Manhattan federal court for helping Epstein engage in sex trafficking. The lawsuit filed by the victims claimed that JPMorgan ignored repeated warnings that Ep- stein had been trafficking teenage girls and young women for sex, even after he registered as a sex offender and pleaded guilty in a 2008 Flor- ida case to soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl. The complaint said the bank overlooked red flags in Epstein's activity because it valued him as a wealthy client who had access to dozens of even wealthier people. Court documents and deposition testimony reviewed by The New York Times revealed that bank employees had filed numerous suspi- cious activity reports about Epstein's repeated large cash withdrawals. The legal documents revealed that after designating Epstein a "high risk client' in 2O06, the bank kept him on as a customer despite media reports detailing al- legations of his sexual abuse of teenage girls and evidence that some of the cash withdrawals were for payments to dozens of young women. JPMorgan had provided banking services for Epstein from roughly 1998 to 2013 - a period in which the federal authorities' and victims ' have said some of the worst conduct was com- mitted by the financier, who had palatial homes in Manhattan, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, New Mexico and Paris. The bank reiterated on Monday what it had said a number of times before about how Ep- stein committed "heinous crimes" and "any as- sociation with him was a mistake and we regret it." The same lawyers for Epstein's victims last month negotiated a tentative 575 million settle- ment with Deutsche Bank, which succeeded JPMorgan as Epstein's primary banker. Deutsche, which ended its relationship with Epstein in late 2018, paid a 5150 million fine to New York regu- lators in 2020 over allegations that it failed to suf- ficiently police its financial dealings with the dis- graced financier among other compliance failures. The settlements with both banks must be ap- proved by Judge Jed Rakoffof U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Rakoff is also presiding over the m- lated lawsuit by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Morgan: V.I. trying to block release of embarrassing Epstein docs By SUZANNE CARLSON Daily News Staff ST. THOMAS -- The V.I. govern- ment is • refusing to disclose certain public molds, according to a new filing by an attorney -representing JPMorgan Chase bank, who says the records ate not confidential, but are embarrassing to gov- ernment officials who dealt with kffrey Epstein. The bank is currently defending against a lawsuit by the V.1. goverrunent, which claims that emplcryees kept Ep- stein on as a client despite his suspicious cash transactions, and media reports that he had been sexually abusing undcrage tion," according to Ells-swan. ElLsisorthb next sentence included several redactions, but hinted at the con- tents of the sealed exhibits: "Spetifically, USVI has asserted confidentiality over public records reflecting embarrassing conanunications [redacted] that re,tul the USVI [redacted] and its abject fail- ure to [redacted]. But avoiding embar- rassment is not a basis to keep court fil- ings sealed" The Virgin islands ger:eminent has long refused to release many types of records that are commonly considered public in other jurisdictions, such as po- lite incident and arrest moons, death cer- tifies and law enforcement personnel records showing whether an officer has a similar tactics to nithhold public records related to Epstein. Epstein had close contact with numer- ous government officials during his life- time, including former first lady Cecile deJongh, who worked as Epstein's em- ployee for 20 ye VI. Delegate to Congress Stacey Plas- kett acknowledged during a May 9 depo- sition that she met privately with Epstein • several times to solicit campaign contri- butions. Plaskett served as the VI. Economic Development Authority attorney from 2007 to 2012 while Bryan was EDA chairman and Epstein, who had already been living in the Virgin Islands for about a decade, was convicted of child sex igiate these materials as confidential," according to Ellsisorth, who listed sev- eral reasons why the documents could be considered confidential, such as fi- nancial information or "materials related to ownership of a non-public company, trade secrets, information of an intimate Rather than citing the protective order, the VJ. government "incorrectly asserts that exhibits mast be kept confidential tut a U.S. Virgin Islands statute related to sex offender registration," Ellsworth wrote. The law lists certain information ahni convicted sex offenders that must be pub- licly disclosoi -but it dots not provide that other government records -- for Maxi to release intimation," according to the law That means government officials could chase to release "confidential" re- cords that are in the public interest. Ellsworth also noted that, "Absent from that list of fifteenrecordtypes is any mention of records related to sex offender registration" Still, the government is insisting that the law doesn't allow any information to be made politic that isn't on the list of information that must be included on the sex offender registry website. Ellsworth called the argument "dubi- ous," given that the law also includes a list of what information cannot be included on the ymbisite_ In .addition. fivIenil law EFTA00129019