(New York) The American bank JPMorgan Chase has concluded an amicable agreement with the American Virgin Islands which settles the lawsuits launched by the territory against the establishment, which it accused of having facilitated the operation of the prostitution network set up by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
As part of the deal, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $75 million, $30 million of which will go to charity, according to a statement released by the bank Tuesday.
The settlement does not include an admission of guilt, but the bank said it “sincerely regrets any association with this man.”
JPMorgan Chase “would never have continued to do business with him if it had thought that he was using the bank to carry out his criminal activities,” assured the establishment.
Arrested in July 2019 and charged with maintaining a prostitution network made up, in large part, of minors, he committed suicide in detention at the beginning of August of the same year, before his trial.
The Virgin Islands had taken JPMorgan Chase to court, accusing it of not having prevented the New York financier from using the bank’s services to maintain this network and demanding $190 million in damages.
In June, the establishment agreed to pay $290 million to alleged victims of Mr. Epstein, again avoiding a trial.
The financier, whose origins of his fortune are opaque, was a client of JPMorgan Chase between 1998 and 2013, before the establishment finally decided to sever their commercial relationship.
Jeffrey Epstein was sentenced in 2008 to a reduced prison sentence of 13 months for leading young girls into prostitution in Florida, according to a secret agreement with a prosecutor allowing him to escape federal prosecution.
But in 2019, the federal prosecutor in Manhattan ignored this deal and indicted the sixty-year-old for similar acts.
Considered the right arm of Jeffrey Epstein, the daughter of British media mogul Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell, was sentenced, in June 2022, to 20 years in prison for having collaborated in this system of sexual exploitation.
JPMorgan Chase also announced Tuesday that it had reached an amicable settlement with one of its former executives, James “Jess” Staley, at the center of the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he was friends.
This transaction puts an end to the civil proceedings initiated by the establishment against him, JPMorgan Chase indicated.
