Jeffery Epstein Victims Sue Bank That ‘Benefitted’ From His Sick Crimes
by Liza Carlisle
November 26, 2022
The NY times reported earlier this year that a woman who had accused Great Britain’s Prince Andrew of abuse in Epstein’s scheme had settled with Epstein in 2009 for the sum of $500,000, but was still seeking retribution from the Prince.
A woman accused Epstein in 2019 of abuse at his hands in Florida when she was only 14 years old, the Guardian then reported, writing, “More than a dozen lawsuits are seeking millions of dollars in compensation for women who say they were sexually abused by Epstein, sometimes for years at his homes in Manhattan, Florida, New Mexico, the Virgin Islands, and Paris.”
Now two women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse have now filed suit against banks that allegedly handled Epstein’s financial transactions with women who were used in the scenarios.
One woman claims she was sexually abused by Epstein and trafficked to his friends for 15 years — from about 2003 until about 2018. She was also paid in cash for sex acts, according to her suit.
The unnamed women have slapped JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank with separate lawsuits, claiming the financial giants chose profits over reigning in the convicted pedophile’s alleged sex-trafficking operation.
The women, identified only as Jane Does, filed the lawsuits Thursday in New York federal court, seeking class-action status and unspecified financial damages, according to the complaints reviewed by The Post.
The lawsuits state both banks assisted and participated in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking by enabling him to make payments to women for sex acts and that the banks profited from Epstein’s activities.
The Hill noted that “Two separate lawsuits, filed int he U.S. District Court for the ?Southern District of New York Thursday, allege the banks knowingly benefited from ‘assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization to successfully rape, sexually assault, and coercively sex traffic’ the women despite knowing about Epstein’s dealings.
Epstein couldn’t have kept up his sex trafficking operations without the ‘assistance and complicity’ of a banking institution, the lawsuit contends. Attachment to a banking institution gave Epstein’s operations ‘special treatment’ and ‘the appearance of legitimacy’ reads the filing against Deutsche Bank,” The Hill reported.
Both banks worked with the disgraced financier after he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida in 2008. Epstein died in a federal Manhattan detention center in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges
The New York Post writes:
In the suit against Deutsche Bank, it is stated that during that time, the bank ignored several red flags including payments to numerous young women and large withdrawals of cash, the suit said. New York’s regulator found Epstein, his related entities and associates had more than 40 accounts at Deutsche Bank, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first broke news of the lawsuits.
“[Deutsche Bank] knowingly participated in the Epstein sex-trafficking venture by (among other things) providing the financial underpinnings for Epstein to have ready and reliable access to resources — including cash — to recruit, lure, coerce, and entice young women and girls to be sexually abused and to cause them to engage in commercial sex acts and other degradations,” the suit said
The suit accuses former JPMorgan head of private banking Jes Staley of first establishing a business relationship in 2000 with Epstein that lasted through 2013 when he left JPMorgan and the bank distanced itself from Epstein, giving Epstein’s operations credibility. The suit does not allege that Staley was personally aware of Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring.
“The relationship between Epstein and Staley was symbiotic,” the suit said. “Epstein agreed to bring many ultra-high wealth clients to JP Morgan, and in exchange, Staley would use his clout within JPMorgan to make Epstein untouchable.”
A lawyer for Staley declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal. ”This meant that JP Morgan would keep Epstein on as a client at all costs, including failing to act on any red flags and ultimately allowing him the ability to run and grow what to the bank was obviously an operation designed to sexually abuse and traffic countless young women,” the suit continued.
“We believe this claim lacks merit and will present our arguments in court,” a Deutsche Bank spokesman told The Post.
JP Morgan Bank has also been named in the suit.
“With JP Morgan’s complicity, Epstein was free to sexually abuse hundreds of women, paying millions in hush money, without the fear of detection by law enforcement. Epstein used the support from a reputable institution — JPMorgan — to help cover up his criminal activity,” the suit said.
JPMorgan has so far declined comment, the NY Post noted.