NEW YORK — A New York federal judge on Monday ruled that the U.S. Virgin Islands and women who accuse the late investor Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse can proceed with lawsuits claiming that JPMorgan Chase knowingly benefited from participating in Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme.
In addition, the judge allowed parts of a separate, similar lawsuit by Epstein’s accusers against Deutsche Bank, including the claim that that bank also knowingly benefited.
The four-page ruling by Manhattan District Judge Jed Rakoff came in response to motions from JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank to dismiss the three lawsuits.
While Rakoff agreed to dismiss multiple counts of each of the cases, he allowed the other explosive counts to remain and to head toward trial. The judge wrote that he would issue an opinion explaining the reasons for his decisions “in due course.”
Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal criminal child sex-trafficking charges, was a JPMorgan client from 1998 through 2013.
The last five years of that relationship came after he pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting an underage prostitute. At a court hearing on Thursday before Rakoff, a lawyer for the Virgin Islands said JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon “knew in 2008 that his billionaire client was a sex trafficker,” a claim disputed by an attorney for the bank.
Deutsche Bank accepted Epstein as a client in 2013 and kept him as one even after employees reported 40 underage girls making sexual-assault claims against him. The bank paid New York banking regulators a $150 million fine for its dealings with him.
Brad Edwards, the Edwards Pottinger attorney who is representing Epstein abuse accusers, called the rulings Monday ″a monumental victory for the hundreds of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme and survivors of sexual abuse in general, all of whom can rest easier knowing no individual or institution is above accountability.”
“Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation was impossible without the assistance of JPMorgan Chase, and later Deutsche Bank,” Edwards said. “And we assure the public that we will leave no stone unturned in our quest for justice for the many victims who deserved better from one of America’s largest financial institutions.”
By JIM MORGAN/CNBC