US Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George has filed a lawsuit accusing JP Morgan Chase of facilitating Jeffery Epstein's sex-trafficking operation.
"Human trafficking," the lawsuit alleges, was the "principal business" of Epstein's accounts at the bank, but the bank "turned a blind eye for more than a decade because of Epstein's own financial footprint, and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to the bank.
"JP Morgan knowingly, negligently, and unlawfully provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise."
The lawsuit claims that the bank and its employees knew that they were facilitating Epstein's sexual abuse and sex-trafficking conspiracy, and that the bank knowingly concealed its conduct by failing to comply with "red flag" laws.
"These decisions were advocated and approved at the senior levels of JP Morgan."
I'll be honest. I don't know what the day in the life of a senior level executive at JP Morgan looks like.
I've always imagined it looking something like this:
But I could be wrong.
Still, I'm not sure how much time they have to be checking laws and what not, and the lawsuit isn't real clear how the bank "knowingly" ignored the laws, mostly because those details are heavily redacted in the court documents.
Why are they redacted?
Section V's redacted section is titled "Epstein Brought Additional High Net Worth Clients to JP Morgan," so I'm guessing the lawsuit drops the names of some of Epstein's "clients."
JP Morgan wasn't the first bank to get hit for dealing with Epstein.
Deutsche Bank was investigated in 2020 by New York state authorities for failing to report suspicious activity in Epstein's account, like paying Russian models and payments for eastern European girl's school tuition. The bank agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for covering for Epstein's "business".
To put that all in perspective, Deutsche Bank has $1.472 trillion in assets, and JP Morgan Chase has $3.774 trillion in assets.
These banks paying $100+ million for a little underage prostitution scandal is the equivalent of you and me dropping a penny and being too lazy to pick it up.
