JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon seems to be on throughout the inauguration of the brand new French headquarters of US’ JP Morgan financial institution on June 29, 2021 in Paris.
Michel Euler | AFP | Getty Pictures
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified closing week that prime financial institution govt Mary Erdoes and the company’s then-head legal professional had the authority as well intercourse predator Jeffrey Epstein as a buyer smartly earlier than Erdoes after all took that step in 2013.
Questions through legal professionals to Dimon at his deposition Friday for 2 complaints in opposition to JPMorgan underscore that Erdoes and the legal professional, former JPMorgan overall suggest Stephen Cutler, had been conscious about claims Epstein had preyed on younger girls whilst a consumer of the financial institution for years.
Erdoes in her personal deposition, taken prior to now, admitted that she as early as 2006 was once mindful that Epstein was once accused of paying money to have underage ladies and younger girls delivered to his house, court docket filings disclose.
However Dimon on Friday again and again stated he had no wisdom of such claims about Epstein, and that he was once slightly conscious about him in any respect till 2019, in step with a transcript of the deposition acquired through CNBC.
The complaints in opposition to the financial institution allege Epstein used cash from his JPMorgan accounts for the intercourse trafficking of younger girls, and that the financial institution retained him as a buyer to handle his trade in spite of severe caution flags about him.
One go well with in opposition to the financial institution was once filed through the federal government of the usVirgin Islands, the place Epstein maintained a place of dwelling on a personal island. The opposite go well with was once filed through an Epstein accuser who is looking for to certify the grievance as a category motion for different sufferers.
Right through his deposition, Dimon was once proven an e-mail that JPMorgan’s then-general suggest Cutler Cutler despatched Erdoes about Epstein on July 21, 2011.
In that e-mail, Cutler wrote: “I want to put it and him at the back of us. No longer an individual we will have to do trade with, length.”
“This isn’t an honorable particular person whatsoever,” Cutler wrote in an e-mail an afternoon previous to Erdoes, some other most sensible govt, Jes Staley, and two different financial institution executives, in step with a legal professional who was once wondering Dimon throughout the deposition.
“He will have to now not be a consumer,” Cutler added in that e-mail.
Cutler, in his personal deposition closing week, “testified underneath oath that Jes Staley and Mary Erdoes made the verdict to retain Epstein as a buyer of the financial institution,” a legal professional informed Dimon.
Dimon testified Friday that he was once now not conscious about that e-mail through Cutler when it was once despatched.
However he additionally stated, “Mr. Cutler had without equal authority to kick him out if he concept it had long past too a ways.”
“He was once delegating reputational selections to any person else” Dimon stated, it appears regarding Cutler’s declare that the verdict to retain Epstein was once made through Staley and Erdoes.
Staley was once a chum of Epstein, and had made social visits to his properties in Ny and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He’s because of be deposed within the fits on June 10 and 11, in step with a supply aware of the agenda.
Dimon was once deposed at JPMorgan’s headquarters in New York through legal professionals for the plaintiffs, and for Staley, who JPMorgan argues in its personal prison grievance in opposition to him is accountable for any civil legal responsibility a jury may to find.
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Epstein was once terminated as a buyer in 2013, two years after the emails and 5 years after he pleaded responsible to a Florida state rate of soliciting intercourse from a minor.
Because of that conviction, he needed to check in as a intercourse wrongdoer. Epstein killed himself in a Ny prison in August 2019, a month after being arrested on federal kid intercourse trafficking fees.
A legal professional requested Dimon throughout the deposition: “As CEO of personal [banking] or asset and wealth control, Mary Erdoes may have made up our minds to terminate Jeffrey Epstein as a buyer, as a consumer, of JPMorgan; is that proper?”
Dimon replied, “I in most cases would say that is true, sure.”
Erdoes testified in her previous deposition that JPMorgan dropped Epstein as a consumer in 2013 after she discovered that his withdrawals from his accounts had been for “exact money,” in step with court docket filings.
“I’ve agree with and admire in either one of them,” Dimon testified about Erdoes and Cutler.
“My view is had she recognized what she had recognized these days, she could be pronouncing precisely the similar factor I stated,” Dimon stated, regarding his observation that he would have terminated Epstein as a consumer if he knew about his habits on the time.
“There is a probability that Jes knew, that is why they are other.”
Dimon testified that he was once now not knowledgeable that Epstein was once indicted in Florida for intercourse crimes in 2006, or of alternative issues about him that others on the financial institution raised, the deposition unearths.
“I do not recall realizing the rest about Jeffrey Epstein till the tales broke someday in 2019” Dimon stated, regarding when Epstein was once arrested on federal kid intercourse trafficking fees.
“I used to be stunned that I did not even — had by no means even heard of the fellow, just about. And the way concerned he was once with such a lot of folks,” Dimon stated.
A legal professional then requested, “Had been you mindful that Jeffrey Epstien was once selling you to contacts as a candidate for Secretary of the Treasury?”
Dimon spoke back: “Nope.”
When requested if the accusers of Epstein deserved an apology, Dimon stated, “I feel what came about to those girls is atrocious, and I am horrified on the quantity of human trafficking that takes position.”
“And I would not thoughts individually apologizing to them, now not as a result of we dedicated the crime, we didn’t, and now not as a result of we consider we are accountable, however that any attainable factor, what little position that we may have eased it or helped catch it faster or one thing like that, or get it to regulation enforcement faster or get regulation enforcement to react to it faster, which they clearly did not, you already know, I might make an apology to them.”
“For that, sure,” he stated.
The Wall Boulevard Magazine reported previous Wednesday that prison paperwork within the circumstances display that Staley mentioned Epstein with Dimon through the years, together with when Epstein was once arrested in Florida in 2006 and when he pleaded responsible if so two years later.
“Staley additionally stated that Dimon communicated with him quite a lot of occasions about whether or not to handle Epstein as a consumer via 2012,” The Magazine reported.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman in a observation about The Magazine’s article stated, “We consider that is false.”
“There’s no proof that one of these communications ever happened — not anything within the voluminous collection of paperwork reviewed and not anything within the just about dozen depositions taken, together with that of our personal CEO,” stated Patricia Wexler, the spokeswoman.
Wexler later Friday informed CNBC, “Had the Company believed he was once engaged in an ongoing intercourse trafficking operation, Epstein shouldn’t have been retained as shopper.”
“In hindsight, we feel sorry about he was once ever a consumer,’ Wexler stated.
