JPMorgan Chase announced a tentative $290 million settlement Monday with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein who had accused the bank of being the financial conduit that allowed the financier to continue operating a sex trafficking operation.
Epstein was accusing him of paying underage girls for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York. He was found dead in jail in August of that year, at age 66. A medical examiner .
The lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court in November sought to hold JPMorgan financially liable for Epstein鈥檚 decades-long abuse of teenage girls and young women. A related lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The proposed settlement comes roughly two weeks after testified in a deposition for the case, where he denied knowing about Epstein and his crimes until the financier was arrested in 2019, according to a transcript of the videotaped deposition released last month.
鈥淲e all now understand that Epstein鈥檚 behavior was monstrous, and we believe this settlement is in the best interest of all parties, especially the survivors, who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of this man,鈥� JPMorgan Chase said in a written statement early Monday.
The proposed settlement, which must still be approved by the judge in the case, totals $290 million, according to lead plaintiff attorney David Boies.
According to the lawsuits, JPMorgan provided Epstein loans and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013 even though it was aware of his participation in sex trafficking. The anonymous victim in the suit, referred to as Jane Doe, said she was sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 and 2013.
Also on Monday, a judge ruled in favor of making Doe鈥檚 lawsuit into a class-action lawsuit for all victims of Epstein鈥檚 sex crimes.
鈥淢oney, which for far too long flowed with impunity between Jeffrey Epstein鈥檚 global sex trafficking enterprise and Wall Street鈥檚 leading banks, is decisively being used for good,鈥� said Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Jane Doe and other Epstein victims, in a prepared statement. 鈥淭he settlements signal that financial institutions have an important role to play in spotting and shutting down sex trafficking.鈥�
The bank continued to count Epstein as a client despite the fact that he was arrested and pled guilty in 2008 to sex crimes in Florida.
鈥淎ny association with him was a mistake and we regret it,鈥� the bank said in a prepared statement. 鈥淲e would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes.鈥�
Both lawsuits were filed after New York state in November enacted a temporary law letting adult victims of sexual abuse to sue others for the abuse they suffered, even if the abuse occurred long ago.
Lawsuits are still pending between the U.S. Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, and the bank is against JPMorgan former executive Jes Staley.
The bank has denied the allegations and sued Staley, saying he hid Epstein鈥檚 crimes to keep him as a client. Staley left JPMorgan in 2013 to later become CEO of the British bank Barclays. Staley stepped down from that role in 2021 due to his prior relationship with Epstein.
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AP Writer Michael Hill contributed to this report from Albany. AP Writer Larry Neumeister contributed from New York.
Ken Sweet And Michelle Chapman, The Associated Press
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