Tuesday, June 13, 2023 VIRGIN ISLANDS i The Virgin Islands Daily News 3 JPMorgan reaches 200M settlement with Epstein’s victims MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN New YorkTi: mes JPMorgan Chase reached a tentative settlement with sexual abuse victims of Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier, after weeks of embarrassing disclosures about the bank's longstanding relationship [- with him, the bank and Jaw- | yers for the victims said in a Statement on M A David Boies, one of the lead lawyers for the victims, said the bank was to pay $290 million to resolve the lawsuit, The parties ini- tiall had agreed not to Be te senior Jetey Epstein their joint statement, as.it was set to be included in a court filing within the next week. The proposed deal would settle a lawsuit filed last November in Manhattan federal court by an unidentified wom- an on behalf of victims who were sexually abused aecmre oie 15-year period when they were teenage girls and young women, the suit said. The number of victims could potentially rise to more than 100, In the statement, the bank and the lawyers for the victims said they had reached “an agreement in principle to settle” the lawsuit on behalf of the victims and the “settlement is in the best interests of all parties, especially the survivors who were the victims of Epstein’s terrible abuse.” The settlement agreement was reached roughly two weeks after Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's chief executive and one of Wall Street's best-known bankers, sat for a daylong deposition in which he said he had barely heard of Epstein before the fi- peared July 2019 arrest on federal sex traffick- siya killed himself in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell a month after his arrest.’ JPMorgan still faces a related lawsuit by the US. Virgin Islands government. That suit re- mains the biggest outstanding Epstein-related case after years of lawsuits against Epstein'’s es- tate and Ghislaine Maxwell's conviction in 2021 in Manhattan federal court for helping Epstein engage in sex trafficking. The lawsuit filed by the victims claimed that JPMorgan ignored repeated warnings that Ep- stein had been trafficking teenage girls and young women for sex, even after he registered as a sex offender and pleaded guilty in a 2008 Flor- ida case to soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl. The complaint said the bank overlooked red flags in Epstein’s activity because it valued him as a wealthy client who had access to dozens of even wealthier people, Court documents and deposition testimony teviewed by The New York Times revealed that bank employees had filed numerous suspi- cious activity reports about Epstein’s repeated large cash withdrawals. The legal documents revealed that after designating Epstein a “high tisk client” in 2006, the bank kept him on as a customer despite media reports detailing al- legations of his sexual abuse of teenage girls and evidence that some of the cash withdrawals were for payments to dozens of young women. JPMorgan had provided banking services for Epstein from roughly 1998 to 2013 — a period ‘in which the federal authorities and victims “have said some of the worst conduct was com- mitted by the financier, who had palatial homes in Manhattan, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, New Mexico and Paris. The bank reiterated on Monday what it had said a number of times before about how Ep- stein committed “heinous crimes’ and “any as- sociation with him was a mistake and we regret it.” The same lawyers for Epstein’s victims last month negotiated’ a tentative $75 million settle- ment with Deutsche Bank, which succeeded JPMorgan as Epstein’s primary banker. Deutsche, which ended its relationship with Epstein in late 2018; paid a $150 million fine to New York regu- lators in 2020 over allegations that it failed to suf- ficiently police its financial dealings with the dis- graced financier among other compliance failures, The settlements with both banks must be ap- proved by Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Rakoff is also presiding over the re- lated lawsuit by the government of the U.S. Virgm Islands. JPMorgan: V1. trying to block release of embarrassing Epstein docs By SUZANNE CARLSON Daily News Staff z tion;” according to Ellsworth. Ellsworth’s ‘next sentence i telated to Epstem. similar tacties to withhold public records ignate these matenals as confidential,” according to Ellsworth, who listed sey- fized to release information;” according to the law. ST. THOMAS -- The VI. govern- ment is*refusing to disclose certain public records, according to a new filing by an attomey -representing Chase bank, who says the records are not confidential, but are embarrassing to gov- emment officials who dealt with Jeffrey Epstem. against a lawsuit by the V1: government,’ which claims that employees kept Ep- stein on as a client despite his suspicious cash transactions, and media reports that Fe erie eae ate Dh brent be Draw sn tone are ten Foard : included "~~ several redactions, but hinted at the con- tents of the sealed exhibits: “Specifically, USVI has asserted confidentiality over public records reflecting embarrassing communications [redacted] that reveal the USVI’ [redacted] and its abject fail- ure to [redacted]. But avoiding embar- rassment is not a basis to keep court fil- The Virgin Islands government has i Spat sient Wad records that are commonly considered public in other jurisdictions, such as po- lice incident and arrest reports, death cer- tificates, and law enforcement personnel records showing whether an officer has a creas Epstein had close contact with numer- ous government officials during his life- time, inchuding former first lady Cecile deJongh, who worked as Epstein’s em- ployee for 20 years. VIL Delegate to Congress Stacey Plas- kett acknowledged during a May 9 depo- sition that she met privately with Epstein * several times to solicit campaign contri- butions. Plaskett served as the VI. Economic 2007 to 2012 while Bryan was EDA chairman and Epstein, who had already been living in the Virgin Islands for about a decade, was convicted of child sex eral reasons why the documents could be considered confidential, such as fi- nancial information or Tnaienials related to ownership of a non-public company. frac accede sheeted Gt en inte nature,” etc. Rather than citing the protective order, the VI- government “i asserts under a U.S. Virgin Islands statute related to sex offender registration” Ellsworth wrote, ‘The law lists certain information about convicted sex offenders that must be pub- licky disclosed, “but it does not provide that other government records — far from that list of fifteen record types is any mention of records related to sex offender Sull, the government is insisting that is the law doesn’t allow any information to be made public that isn’t on the list of information that must be included on the sex offender registry website. Ellsworth called the angument “dubi- ous,” given that the law also includes a list of what information cannot be included EFTA001290 9