JPMorgan CEO denies he knew of Jeffrey Epstein or his sex crimes
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon denies he knew of Jeffrey Epstein or his sex crimes until his 2019 arrest despite firm’s general counsel email to two execs saying: ‘This is not an honorable person. He should not be a client’
- Jamie Dimon said he had never heard the name Jeffrey Epstein before his arrest
- Other executives at the bank were advised in 2011 not to have Epstein as a client
JPMorgan’s CEO has testified that he had never heard of Jeffrey Epstein and his sex crimes until his 2019 arrest, despite other executives at the bank being advised by general counsel that Epstein was ‘not an honorable person’ and ‘should not be a client’.
According to a transcript of the videotaped deposition released Wednesday, Jamie Dimon said he first heard about Epstein and his crimes against teenage girls and young women ‘when the story blew wide open [in 2019]. He was arrested, and all the stories came out about all the people he knows. And the reason I remember that is I was surprised that I didn’t know about it before.’
Asked by a lawyer if he’d ever heard the name Jeffrey Epstein before the arrest, Dimon responded, ‘Not that I recall.’
But the deposition also revealed that the bank’s former general counsel Stephen Cutler sent an email in 2011 to two other executives, Jes Staley and Mary Erdoes, saying Epstein should not be a client of the bank because he wasn’t ‘honorable’. Dimon said in his deposition he was not aware of the email at the time but ‘I know it today.’
It comes after former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley accused the CEO of lying about his knowledge of bank accounts held by Epstein that were allegedly used for the trafficking of young women.
Jamie Dimon (right) said he first heard about Epstein and his crimes against teenage girls and young women ‘when the story blew wide open’ in 2019. He is pictured with his wife Judith at the White House State Dinner for China in 2011
Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono in March 2005
Asked by a lawyer if he’d ever heard the name Jeffrey Epstein before the arrest, Jamie Dimon responded, ‘Not that I recall’. He is pictured at Senate Banking Committee annual Wall Street oversight hearing, September 22, 2022
Dimon made the revelation during a deposition recorded Friday in New York in connection with lawsuits filed against the nation’s largest bank.
Extract from Jamie Dimon’s deposition from May 26
Q: Did you speak with Mr. Staley at all in the year 2006 about Mr. Epstein?
A: I don’t recall ever having a conversation with him about Jeff Epstein.
Q: During the year 2006, did you speak at any time with Mary Erdoes about the Epstein indictment and whether or not he should continue as a customer of the bank?
A: Nope.
Q: During the year 2006, did you speak with general counsel Steve Cutler with respect to Mr. Epstein having been indicted and whether he should remain a customer of the bank?
A: No.
The 416-page deposition, portions of which were heavily redacted with entire pages blacked out, was released publicly through an agreement among lawyers in the cases.
Confronted at the deposition with an email from Epstein’s former assistant suggesting that Dimon was scheduled to meet with Epstein as far back as 2010, the president and chairman of JPMorgan insisted it was untrue.
‘I have never had an appointment with Jeff Epstein. I’ve never met Jeff Epstein. I never knew Jeff Epstein. I never went to Jeff Epstein’s house. I never had a meal with Jeff Epstein. I have no idea what they’re referring to here,’ he said.
After the email from Epstein’s assistant asking whether ‘heavy snacks’ or dinner should be prepared for the meeting, Epstein responded ‘snacks.’
As Dimon responded to being confronted with the email, a lawyer noted that Epstein did not respond by saying, ‘you’re misinformed, Jamie Dimon is not coming.’
Dimon said, ‘I don’t know what he thought at the time. He was obviously misinformed. I never – this never took place.’
‘I don’t think Jeff Epstein ever arranged for me to meet with anybody, to my knowledge,’ he said.
JPMorgan faces lawsuits seeking damages by women who claim that Epstein sexually abused them, and by the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the late financier had a home.
Jamie Dimon denied having ever known who Epstein was prior to his 2011 arrest. He is pictured during an interview with Reuters in Miami, Florida, February 8, 2023
The lawsuit brought by the US Virgin Islands against JP Morgan claimed former bank executive Jes Staley visited Epstein’s island on ‘multiple occasions’
Epstein was a JPMorgan client from 2000 to 2013, remaining so after pleading guilty in 2008 to a Florida state prostitution charge.
Extract from Jamie Dimon’s deposition from May 26
Q: I’m going to ask you to look next at Exhibit 104-101. This is an exchange of e-mails between Mr. Staley and Mr. Epstein on June 17, 2009. Mr. Epstein writes Mr. Staley: ‘[Redacted] will be staying at 71st Street over the weekend. Do you want to organize either you, or you and Jamie, quietly? Up to you.’ Do you see that?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you meet with Mr. Epstein and/or Mr. Staley at 71st Street over the weekend?
A: Absolutely not.
Q: Do you know what Mr. Epstein is referring to here?
A: I think I’ve testified many times, I didn’t know Jeff Epstein. I never met Jeff Epstein. I never went to his house. I never went to his island. And I do not know exactly what he’s referring to here.
The lawsuits on behalf of Epstein victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands in Manhattan federal court seek to hold JPMorgan financially liable for Epstein’s decadeslong abuse of teenage girls and young women.
The bank, besides denying the allegations, has sued one of its former executives, saying the man hid Epstein’s crimes to keep Epstein as a client.
In Dimon’s May 26 deposition, he was also asked about the email Cutler sent to former private banking chief Jes Staley and Mary Erdoes, now head of asset and wealth management, calling Epstein ‘not a person we should do business with, period.’
‘This is not an honorable person in any way,’ Cutler wrote. ‘He should not be a client.’
The email was read by a lawyer for the Virgin Islands during questioning, according to the transcript.
‘Had the firm believed he was engaged in an ongoing sex trafficking operation, Epstein would not have been retained as client,’ a JPMorgan spokesperson said in a statement. ‘In hindsight, we regret he was ever a client.’
Epstein was 66 in August 2019 when he apparently killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail cell where he awaited a federal sex trafficking trial after his application for bail was denied. He had pleaded not guilty to charges that he sexually abused dozens of girls, some as young as 14.
According to the lawsuits filed late last year, JPMorgan provided Epstein loans and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013 even though it knew about his sex trafficking practices.
A lawsuit brought by the US Virgin Islands suggested the pedophile’s JPMorgan bank accounts were used to pay trafficked women. Pictured: The New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein
An infamous photo taken in Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2011 featuring Staley and Bill Gates – three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. From left: Staley, Lawrence Summers, Epstein and Gates
The revelations came as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought against JPMorgan in which it was claimed that Jes Staley (pictured outside 10 Downing Street in 2011) was close with Epstein and allowed him to maintain accounts with the bank that facilitated his trafficking ring
As part of the lawsuit Jes Staley has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman during his visit to Epstein’s private island (pictured). He has denied knowing about the trafficking but and admitted to a friendship with the convicted pedophile
Dimon denied knowing anything about efforts at the bank in 2006 and 2011 to curtail its dealings with Epstein as he faced criminal charges in Florida. After pleading guilty to state charges there, Epstein spent 13 months in jail and paid settlements to victims.
READ MORE: Ex-JPMorgan exec Jes Staley claims Jamie Dimon discussed keeping Epstein as a client even after arrest
‘After he pleaded guilty to the crime he pleaded guilty to, he – we unfortunately continued to bank him, yes,’ Dimon said, according to the deposition.
Epstein had a close relationship with Jes Staley, who ran multiple parts of JPMorgan, including its investment bank and wealth management arm, until Staley left the bank in 2013. Staley went on to become CEO of the British bank Barclays, but had to step down from that job when the Epstein indictment was revealed.
JPMorgan is trying to make Staley a defendant in its Epstein legal cases, arguing that he downplayed or hid the issues with Epstein.
At one point in the deposition, Dimon agreed that Epstein was a ‘disaster’ and ‘terrible’ for the bank.
‘I think what happened to these women is atrocious, and I´m horrified at the amount of human trafficking that takes place,’ he said.
‘And I wouldn´t mind personally apologizing to them, not because we committed the crime, we did not, and not because we believe we´re responsible. But that any potential thing, what little role that we could have eased it or helped catch it quicker or something like that, or get it to law enforcement quicker or get law enforcement to react to it quicker, which they obviously didn´t, you know, I would apologize to them for that, yes,’ he said.
Dimon talks to reporters as he leaves the U.S. Capitol after reportedly meeting with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Schumer about the possibility of the U.S. defaulting on its debt, May 17, 2023
Donald Trump stands next to Jamie Dimon at the White House on February 3, 2017
Throughout the deposition, Dimon insisted that whether to keep Epstein as a client would have ultimately been left up to the company’s general counsel.
Dimon was asked, ‘If you had known in 2010 that Jeffrey Epstein was a sex trafficker, that Jeffrey Epstein was a client of the bank, that Jeffrey Epstein was withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars of cash every month, would you, as the chief executive officer of the bank, said, `We need to get rid of this guy,´ regardless of whether the general counsel told you that that was the right thing to do?’
‘I think everyone involved, had they known then what is known today, including me, would have taken that position,’ he answered.
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