WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 22: JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon testifies during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill September 22, 2022 in Washington, DC. The committee held the hearing for annual oversight of the nation’s largest banks. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in an interview Thursday said he was “so sad” the bank had any business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — but denied the firm is legally liable for the dead predator’s sex trafficking.
Dimon also said, in the televised interview with Bloomberg, that if JPMorgan had known everything that has become public in recent years about its former customer Epstein “we would have done things differently.”
Dimon is scheduled to give a deposition beginning May 26 for civil lawsuits filed in Manhattan federal court by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and an Epstein sex abuse accuser. The suits accuse JPMorgan of enabling and benefiting from Epstein’s sex trafficking, which included sending young women to the Virgin Islands to be abused by him and others at his private island there.
Court filings this week show in detail that for years employees of JPMorgan shared with each other concerns about having Epstein as a client — well before the bank terminated its relationship with him.
“I am so sad that we had any relationship to that man whatsoever,” Dimon told Bloomberg on Thursday.
“You know, we had top lawyers evaluating, from the [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] enforcement, the [Department of Justice], you know, and obviously, had we known then what we know today, we would have done things differently.”
“But it’s very unfortunate, and I have deep respect for these women,” Dimon said.
“That doesn’t mean we’re liable for the action of an individual, but I do have deep respect for them, my heart goes out to them,” he said.
Epstein, who was a client of the bank beginning in 1998 and kept millions of dollars on deposit, pleaded guilty in 2008 to a Florida state charge of soliciting sex from an underage girl. He was sentenced to 13 months in jail.
Despite that conviction, Epstein remained a customer of JPMorgan until 2013.
A mugshot of Jeffrey Epstein released by the U.S. Justice Department.
Source: U.S. Justice Department
JPMorgan recently has tried to shift legal responsibility for its relationship with Epstein to Jes Staley, the former chief of investment banking at the firm, who had close contact with Epstein over the years when he was a customer.
But at a court hearing in March, a lawyer for the Virgin Islands, told Judge Jed Rakoff that “Jamie Dimon knew in 2008 that his billionaire client was a sex trafficker.”
“If Staley is a rogue employee, why isn’t Jamie Dimon?” the lawyer, Mimi Liu, said at that hearing.
“Staley knew, Dimon knew, JPMorgan Chase knew” about Epstein’s criminal conduct, Liu said. “They broke every rule to facilitate his sex trafficking in exchange for Epstein’s wealth, connections and referrals.”
Liu said the bank should have flagged as suspicious cash transactions and wire transfers by Epstein, which included sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to several women.
A lawyer for JPMorgan at that hearing denied that Dimon had any “specific knowledge” about Epstein, and a bank spokeswoman has said “Jamie Dimon has no recollection of reviewing the Epstein accounts.”
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.
Since then, a number of former friends and associates of Epstein, among them Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew, have been criticized for their relationships with the predator.
Staley stepped down as CEO of Barclays in November 2021 because of his ties to Epstein.
A Nov. 2, 2006, email made public this week in court filings for one of the lawsuits against JPMorgan highlights the concern a top bank official had about Epstein.
The email was sent from Ann Borowiec, then-head of investor relations for JPMorgan, to Staley, who was then CEO of JPMorgan’s asset management division. The message’s subject line is: “Epstein- please call me.”
Borowiec began the message by asking Staley, who was on a plane to Hong Kong, to call her when he could regarding an upcoming meeting her team was scheduled to have, apparently with Epstein.
“Also, having done a little due diligence I have concerns on risk mgt with this client,” she wrote. “We have a bad track record internally on risk. … as you know. Is Jeffrey going to stay involved here? How are we managing risk here. Please call. Thx Ann.”
In January 2011, several years after Epstein pleaded guilty to the Florida state case and become a registered sex offender, a JPMorgan executive director named Maryanne Ryan, who was a compliance manager, wrote an email to Philip DeLuca, the bank’s compliance director, noting a “rapid response meeting on Epstein, the sleazy PB [private banking] client.”
DeLuca replied, “This is the guy who likes young girls, correct? Hope they do not cave!!”
A June 2013 email chain between Ryan and DeLuca contains an attachment that detailed aspects of the bank’s relationship with Epstein “which was previously escalated to the PB reputational risk committee.”
The email notes that in July 2008, PB Risk “referred Jeffrey Epstein to AML [Anti-Money Laundering] Investigations for excessive cash activity.”
“Similarly, during the course of the transaction activity review, an open source review of media reports yielded several negative media articles alleging connections between Jeffrey Epstein and the prostitution/underage sex trade.”
The copied section of the email goes on to say that AML investigations and PB Risk held discussions that “reconfirmed” they had documented Epstein’s negative background and “marked him high risk.” The section notes that in October 2010 AML Investigations “escalated news stories indicating renewed law enforcement interest in Epstein and requested a Rapid Response call.”
An email chain with DeLuca on it shows a Rapid Response Call was held in January 2011, after which Epstein was again retained as a client, but an agreement was made that “Catherine Keating and William Langford explain to Jes Staley how the existence of the Epstein relationship could undermine the Human Trafficking Project currently underway within AML investigations.”
That anti-money laundering project was spearheaded by Langford, who prior to joining JPMorgan in 2006 was a regulatory policy official at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
“Langford mentioned that he briefed Steven Cutler on the potential press and optics related to maintaining the Epstein relationship while at the same time spearheading the Human Trafficking effort within AML,” the email states.
“No change in retention,” the email concludes.
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