The Virgin Islands exposed JPMorgan’s private messages about Jeffrey Epstein, which include jokes about then-16-year-old Miley Cyrus and “Sugar Daddy!” On the right, Cyrus performs at her “Sweet Sixteen.” (Photos via DOJ on the left, and AP Photo/Dan Steinberg on the right)
The same year Miley Cyrus performed at her “Sweet Sixteen” birthday party in California’s Disneyland in 2008, pedophile Jeffrey Epstein became a newly minted sex offender after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
These events didn’t escape the attention of Epstein’s bank at the time, JPMorgan Chase.
In one of the bombshell communications disclosed on Wednesday evening, JPMorgan’s senior executive Mary Erdoes received a message that year asking whether Epstein was attending an event “with miley cyrus.” Erdoes went on to become the CEO of JPMorgan’s Asset & Wealth Management, and she admitted in a recent deposition that the bank was aware by at least 2006 that Epstein stood “accused of paying cash to have underage girls and young women brought to his home.”
That is just one of the revelations inside the second amended complaint filed by the Virgin Islands government, which recently won the right to pursue a lawsuit accusing JPMorgan of knowingly profiting from a sex trafficking scheme. JPMorgan was Epstein’s bank of choice between 1998 and 2013.
This photograph of Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Saint James island was entered into evidence during the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. (Photo via DOJ)
When the Virgin Islands first filed its lawsuit late last year, the government had already amassed substantial evidence. Earlier iterations of the lawsuit revealed how JPMorgan’s former senior executive Jes Staley exchanged 1,200 emails with Epstein within a four-year period. One of those emails showed Staley appearing to fire off a message from Little St. James, where he sipped wine in Epstein’s hot tub — while the predator was still incarcerated in Florida.
The month after Epstein’s guilty plea, JPMorgan sent the predator’s account for “Dimon review,” a reference to CEO Jamie Dimon. Epstein remained a JPMorgan customer for some five years after that review. That message helped support a subpoena to Dimon, who denies any wrongdoing but agreed to testify for a deposition.
The Virgin Islands’ new lawsuit shows how the government meaningfully advanced its case since that time.
Here are some of the most jaw-dropping allegations in the complaint:
1) Two years after Epstein’s guilty plea, JPMorgan compliance officials thought their rich sex offender client “should go.” He stayed as a customer for three more years.
JPMorgan compliance officials’ pronouncement that Epstein “should go” came in 2010. Just a year later, a senior compliance official commented about finding: “Lots of smoke. Lots of questions.”
That official noted that Epstein “is alleged to be involved in the human trafficking of young girls and law enforcement is also allegedly investigating his involvement in this activity” — and described him as an “alleged personal associate” of Staley.
After leaving JPMorgan, Staley became the CEO of Barclays, a position that he held until resigning amid a probe by British regulators.
Barclays CEO Jes Staley participates in the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit at Union West on Oct. 10, 2019, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Referring to the bank’s anti-money laundering division, the official said: “AML Operations went to a [Private Bank] risk meeting late last week requesting that we exit this relationship.”
2) The bank monitored reports of a Department of Justice investigation into Epstein’s relationship with French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel and his company, MC2 Model Management.
Nearly a decade before his arrest, French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel gained an international reputation as Epstein’s alleged procurer. He ultimately died, much like Epstein did, inside a prison awaiting his reckoning. Both men were ruled dead in what appeared to be suicides-by-hanging in 2022.
Long before then, Brunel appeared on the radar of U.S. law enforcement — and JPMorgan.
In 2011, JPMorgan’s senior compliance official wrote: “The one new concerning thing is the one article about the DOJ investigation is saying they brought under age girls to the US via a modeling agency M2 that is owned by a guy named Brunel. Turns out the banker said today we extended Epstein a loan in relation to this modeling agency.”
The writer nevertheless asserted that MC2 appeared to be “legit” and that “it would be hard for us to tell” if “girls were exploited
via their contract or arrangement.”
JPMorgan provided that company with a line of credit, the Virgin Islands government says.
3) JPMorgan allegedly opened private banking and credit card accounts for 18-year-olds said to be in Epstein’s “inner entourage,” joking he was their “Sugar Daddy!”
This message, courtesy of the compliance official, dates back to 2004, before Epstein’s first prosecution but after the predator became a JPMorgan customer.
Describing the two 18-year-olds said to be part of Epstein’s “entourage,” the official states: “One is mentioned in many of the recaps of the escapades as a willing participant and assistant when hosting visitors. She has received about 450,000 since opening from Epstein … Both can be put in Palm Beach during 2004, by way of debit charges, which was when most allegations were from.”
The message continues later: “He did pay other girls, many models no huge amounts. Sugar Daddy!”
4) JPMorgan’s compliance appeared to be suspicious of Epstein’s donations to local law enforcement at the time of his first investigation.
Epstein’s habit of placing strategic donations to gain him access to young girls came into focus in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, whose first victim, “Jane,” testified that she first met the pair as a 14-year-old student of the Michigan-based Interlochen Arts Academy.
Evidence showed that Epstein placed donations that led the school to open a lodge in Epstein’s name.
An executive at Interlochen, a prestigious arts academy for gifted youth in Michigan, identified this photograph as the building formerly known as the Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge. (Photo via DOJ)
JPMorgan’s compliance monitor appeared to find a similar brand of self-interest at play when Epstein’s “foundation account did pay donations to the Palm Beach Police Dept as reported just before the case started.”
“The same foundation account did pay monies direct to models and payments direct to specialty schools (massage, culinary) and university’s on behalf of models/aspiring actresses,” the message said. “Nothing was astronomical.”
5) Even Epstein’s bank appeared dumbfounded about their client’s supposed billionaire clients — other than L Brands founder Les Wexner.
After his short-lived stint as a teacher at New York’s prestigious Dalton School, Epstein cut his teeth in the financial world at Bear Stearns. He resigned from that company around the time of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, before opening his own murky enterprise that supposedly dealt only with billionaire clients.
As of 2011, however, even his bank couldn’t ascertain any client he had — other than L Brands founder Les Wexner.
“His business accounts Fiduciary we saw no client activity,” one communication reads. “I know his biggest client, Wexner parted ways when he was convicted. His [Due Diligence Reports] say he manages a few private clients money but never says who. I would like to know if in fact he is managing anyone’s money at this point or is it all his money. We saw no evidence of disbursements even in the rocky years 08-09. When the well to do were running to their mattresses, he did not have any distributions from his accounts at Bear or JP. He does have money at other institutions so maybe it happened there.”
Read the new complaint here.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
