JPMorgan Chase has reached a settlement in a class action lawsuit with victims of financier Jeffrey Epstein. An agreement that, reports the New York Times, would be worth 290 million dollars.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York. He was found dead in prison on August 10 of the same year, aged 66. The coroner ruled his death a suicide.
The lawsuit filed in November in Manhattan federal court sought to hold JPMorgan financially responsible for Epstein’s decades of abuse of teenagers and young women. A related lawsuit was filed in the US Virgin Islands. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“The parties believe this settlement is in the best interests of all parties, especially the survivors who were victims of Epstein’s horrific abuse,” the bank said in a statement. Litigation between the U.S. Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase is still ongoing, as are JPMorgan Chase’s claims against former executive Jes Staley. According to the lawsuits, JPMorgan made loans to Epstein and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of money from 1998 to August 2013, despite having knowledge of his sex trafficking practices.
The bank has denied the allegations and is suing Staley, saying it covered up Epstein’s crimes to keep him as a client.
JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon testified that he never heard of Epstein and his crimes until the financier was arrested in 2019, according to a videotaped deposition transcript released last month. The deal is subject to court approval.