JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has testified that he by no means heard of Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes towards teenage ladies and younger ladies till the financier was arrested in 2019, in line with a transcript of the videotaped deposition launched Wednesday.
Dimon stated he first heard about it “when the story blew broad open. He was arrested, and all of the tales got here out about all of the individuals he is aware of. And the rationale I keep in mind that is I used to be shocked that I didn’t learn about it earlier than.”
Requested by a lawyer if he’d ever heard the title Jeffrey Epstein earlier than his arrest, Dimon responded, “Not that I recall.”
Dimon made the revelation throughout a videotaped deposition recorded final week in reference to lawsuits filed towards the nation’s largest financial institution.
The lawsuits on behalf of Epstein victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands in Manhattan federal court docket search to carry JPMorgan financially accountable for Epstein’s decadeslong abuse of teenage ladies and younger ladies.
The bank, besides denying the allegations, has sued one in all its former executives, saying the person hid Epstein’s crimes to maintain Epstein as a consumer.
Epstein was 66 when he apparently killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail cell the place he was awaiting a federal intercourse trafficking trial after his software for bail was denied. He had pleaded not responsible to expenses that he sexually abused dozens of ladies, some as younger as 14.
In response to the lawsuits filed late final 12 months, JPMorgan offered Epstein with giant quantities of money from 1998 by August 2013 despite the fact that it knew about his intercourse trafficking practices.
The 416-page deposition, parts of which had been closely redacted with complete pages blacked out, was launched publicly by an settlement amongst attorneys within the circumstances.
Confronted on the deposition with an e-mail from Epstein’s former assistant suggesting that Dimon was scheduled to fulfill with Epstein way back to 2010, the president and chairman of JPMorgan insisted it was unfaithful.
“I’ve by no means had an appointment with Jeff Epstein. I’ve by no means met Jeff Epstein. I by no means knew Jeff Epstein. I by no means went to Jeff Epstein’s home. I by no means had a meal with Jeff Epstein. I don’t know what they’re referring to right here,” he stated.
After the e-mail from Epstein’s assistant asking whether or not “heavy snacks” or dinner must be ready for the assembly, Epstein responded “snacks.”
As Dimon responded to being confronted with the e-mail, a lawyer famous that Epstein didn’t reply by saying, “you’re misinformed, Jamie Dimon is just not coming.”
Dimon stated, “I don’t know what he thought on the time. He was clearly misinformed. I by no means — this by no means occurred.”
“I don’t suppose Jeff Epstein ever organized for me to fulfill with anyone, to my data,” he stated.
Epstein had an in depth relationship with Jes Staley, who ran a number of elements of JPMorgan, together with its funding financial institution and wealth administration arm, till Staley left the financial institution in 2013. Staley went on to develop into CEO of the British financial institution Barclays, however needed to step down from that job when Epstein indictment was revealed.
JPMorgan is making an attempt to make Staley a defendant in its Epstein authorized circumstances, arguing that he downplayed or hid the problems with Epstein.
At one level within the deposition, Dimon agreed that Epstein was a “catastrophe” and “horrible” for the financial institution.
All through the deposition, Dimon insisted that whether or not to maintain Epstein as a consumer would have in the end been left as much as the corporate’s normal counsel.
Dimon was requested, “In case you had recognized in 2010 that Jeffrey Epstein was a intercourse trafficker, that Jeffrey Epstein was a consumer of the financial institution, that Jeffrey Epstein was withdrawing tens of hundreds of {dollars} of money each month, would you, because the chief govt officer of the financial institution, stated, ‘We have to eliminate this man,’ no matter whether or not the overall counsel instructed you that that was the precise factor to do?”
“I feel everybody concerned, had they recognized then what is understood in the present day, together with me, would have taken that place,” he answered.
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