Jeffrey Epstein and his Virgin Islands home (Photos via DOJ)
Three years after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution of a minor, Jeffrey Epstein had the ear of the wife of the then-Virgin Islands governor in attempting to craft sex-offender legislation that wouldn’t put too much of a crimp in his lifestyle.
So alleges the latest scorching allegations in a legal brief filed by JPMorgan Chase, which is trying to turn the tables on the Virgin Islands government.
Since late last year, the Virgin Islands has tried to hold the behemoth financial institution liable for knowingly profiting from Epstein’s sex-trafficking conspiracy. JPMorgan’s most potent defense against the allegations has been a counteroffensive, the latest of which reveals alleged communications between Epstein and former Virgin Islands first lady Cecile de Jongh from 2011.
That May, the Virgin Islands legislature considered amending sex offender monitoring laws, and the bank quoted de Jongh running the proposed language by Epstein.
“This is the suggested language; will it work for you?” de Jongh wrote, according to the brief.
“We should add out of country for more than 7 days, otherwise I could not go for a day trip to Tortola, at the last minute,” the sex offender allegedly replied, referring to the largest isle on the British Virgin Islands.
Epstein also fretted the statute’s transparency provisions could make certain information “accessible by the press,” according to the filing.
“If we are not careful. A list of who I stay with should violate my privacy,” he wrote. “Restrict my business and livelihood.”
De Jongh allegedly responded that she didn’t “want to email back and forth,” before describing the hurried timetable for the legislation.
JPMorgan claims that the then-Virgin Islands first lady wasn’t just an ally of Epstein, but a paid manager of his Virgin Islands companies, receiving a salary, bonuses and other benefits. Epstein and his then-personal attorney Maria Hodge also lobbied the Virgin Islands Department of Justice and the attorney general’s office — with apparently disappointing results for the wealthy sex offender, according to the filing.
“I know this was a horrible week and i am really sorry about how things panned out,” de Jongh apologized to Epstein after the law’s passage in June 2011. “Not being able to take someone at their word is incredibly frustrating. However, all is not lost and we will figure something out by coming up with a game plan to get around these obstacles.”
That plan, JPMorgan says, involved getting then-Virgin Islands senators involved to “facilitate Epstein’s easy travel to and from” the territory.
JPMorgan has fought tenaciously to rid itself of liabilities — and the torrent of bad press that came with it — in connection with its association with Epstein. The bank reached a $290 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit filed anonymously by an Epstein survivor, averting a potentially embarrassing trial that would have put the alleged conduct of JPMorgan executives under the public glare.
Attorney Brad Edwards, known for his representation of Epstein survivors, credited assistance from the Virgin Islands government for helping to reach that deal.
“The information and support the U.S. Virgin Islands and its legal team provided to the survivors was enormously valuable, and we recognize the importance of the government’s continued litigation against JPMorgan Chase to prevent future crimes,” Edwards said in a statement.
The Virgin Islands attorney general’s office, for its part, has held firm and has announced no intention to settle its case before a trial in October. The government has described the bank’s “hyperbolic conspiracy theories” about the Virgin Islands as an effort to “distract and deflect,” asking Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff to strike intimations of hypocrisy as an affirmative defense. JPMorgan insists that its arguments are legitimate.
“Tellingly, USVI’s motion seeks to strike only those specific defenses that threaten to expose its relationship with Epstein,” the bank’s attorney Felicia Ellsworth noted in her brief.
The former governor’s first lady is hardly the only Virgin Islands official identified in JPMorgan’s brief. The bank also alleged that Epstein had “close ties” with current Gov. Albert Bryan (D), who fired ex-Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George — the prosecutor who first filed the case against JPMorgan.
Former sex trafficking prosecutor Mitchell Epner suspects that, if a federal judge finds JPMorgan’s claims about the Virgin Islands fair game for trial, the bank will use the information to draw the government to the negotiating table.
“It is standard in litigation to use the process to disincentivize the opponent to continue,” said Epner, who’s now a partner at Rottenberg Lipman Rich PC.
If unsuccessful in that effort, the trial will begin on Oct. 23, 2023.
Read the filing here.
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