Jeffrey Epstein and Jamie Dimon (Photo of Epstein via DOJ; Image of Dimon via Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon agreed to face a deposition about allegations that the bank knowingly profited from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking venture, sources confirmed to Law&Crime.
The Virgin Islands government claims that Dimon knew about Epstein’s crimes by at least 2008, the year of the predator’s Florida conviction. They have sought to pin down what Dimon knew and when he knew.
On March 9, Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff signed off on a subpoena seeking Dimon’s records. JPMorgan insisted that Dimon is “not relevant” to the lawsuit, asserting that he wasn’t involved in any decisions related to Epstein’s account.
Since that time, Rakoff sent a pair of federal lawsuits against JPMorgan to discovery, one by the Virgin Islands government and another by Epstein survivors. He denied the bank’s motion to dismiss the cases, finding they plausibly alleged that JPMorgan knew Epstein was sex trafficking minors when they did business with him.
In the wake of that ruling, Dimon agreed to sit for a deposition, but a date hasn’t been set, two sources told Law&Crime. The development was first reported by Bloomberg.
Representatives for the Virgin Islands government and the survivors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
During a hearing earlier this month, the Virgin Islands attorney general’s private counsel Mimi Liu noted that an internal JPMorgan email from August 2008 discussed the flow of Epstein’s assets, with a reference to “pending Dimon review.”
“That’s Jamie Dimon,” Liu said, adding that Epstein remained a JPMorgan client for five years after that review.
JPMorgan says that there is no record of, nor does Dimon recall, ever reviewing Epstein’s accounts.
Since being sued, JPMorgan filed a third-party lawsuit against their former senior executive Jes Staley, who later became the CEO of Barclays Bank. Staley has been under pressure after British regulators scrutinized the 1,200 emails that were exchanged with Epstein from 2008 through 2012. The communications showed that Staley appeared to visit Epstein’s island Little St. James, while Epstein was still incarcerated. Epstein sent Staley multiple emails with photographs of a young woman, and regulators say he sent transfers of money to women with Eastern European surnames timed around Staley’s visits to his properties.
At a hearing, the survivors’ attorney David Boies said that one of Epstein’s victims accused Staley of sexual assault. Staley has not faced any criminal charges in connection with the allegations.
The Virgin Islands government, however, argues that JPMorgan can’t blame everything on Staley.
“If Staley is a rogue employee, why isn’t Jamie Dimon?” Liu asked on March 16, saying the key question in the litigation isn’t “whether or not Mr. Staley raped any young women in the Virgin Islands.”
“The question is: What did he know?” Liu continued. “And Jamie Dimon knew in 2008 that his billionaire client was a child sex trafficker. Staley knew, Dimon knew, JPMorgan knew.”
JPMorgan banked with Epstein between 1998 and 2013, half a decade after Epstein’s Florida conviction of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Epstein’s light sentence in that case would take focus in The Miami Herald’s investigative series, “Perversion of Justice.”
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