From Wall Street on Parade, April 13:
Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is desperately attempting to redirect the media’s focus to anything other than two federal lawsuits that name his bank as a knowing facilitator and cash conduit for Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring. One lawsuit has been filed by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands where Epstein owned an island-compound and air-lifted young girls in and out. The other lawsuit has been filed by an alleged underage victim of Epstein’s, Jane Doe 1.
Dimon’s high-powered p.r. machine has been churning out headlines on his role as “rescuer” of the teetering bank, First Republic, (never mind that there are few signs that the bank has actually been rescued). And one would think that Dimon has written a new Magna Carta for all the press attention going to his unremarkable annual letter to shareholders.
The latest shiny object misdirection rolled out by Dimon’s p.r. flacks was a wide- ranging interview last Thursday between Dimon and CNN’s Poppy Harlow, where the breadth of her questions hinted that Dimon was on a par with a head of state, rather than the head of a bank with an unprecedented five criminal felony counts.
After allowing Dimon to opine on everything from Russia’s war on Ukraine to the Fed’s interest rate policy to affordable housing and inner-city schools, Harlow finally got around to the topic of Epstein. The exchange went as follows:
HARLOW: OK. We have to go pretty soon but I — I do want to ask you a few more things. I want to ask you about something that is in the news — that JPMorgan is in the news about a former client of yours and that is Jeffery Epstein. JPMorgan is being sued now by the U.S. Virgin Islands. They’re alleging that your bank helped facilitate payments to Epstein’s victims and benefited from human trafficking while ignoring warnings. Do those allegations have merit?
DIMON: Well, I cannot talk about current litigation except to say that whenever these things come up, we have some of the best lawyers in the world — compliance, out of the DOJ, out of SEC, important divisions who review all of these things and make decisions at the time based on what they know, as best as they know.
HARLOW: You’re going to be deposed we’ve learned now in this case in the spring. In retrospect, Jamie, do you think JPMorgan should have acted more quickly after Epstein pleaded guilty to one of these charges in 2008 — because he was your client for five more years?
DIMON: Hindsight is a fabulous gift.
It now appears that this exclusive interview airing on an international news outlet might have been motivated by the fact that the U.S. Virgin Islands was planning to drop major new bombshells in court in the Epstein/JPMorgan case – which it did yesterday.
The overall thrust of the U.S. Virgin Islands case against the bank is presented in the second amended complaint as follows:
“…based on documents reviewed and interviews conducted by the Government, JP Morgan knowingly facilitated, sustained, and concealed the human trafficking network operated by Jeffrey Epstein from his home and base in the Virgin Islands, and financially benefitted from this participation, directly or indirectly, by failing to comply with federal banking regulations, [redacted]. JP Morgan facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of—and were in fact part of—a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude of dozens of women and girls in and beyond the Virgin Islands. Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JP Morgan.
“Upon information and belief, JP Morgan turned a blind eye to evidence of human trafficking over 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. These decisions were advocated and approved at the senior levels of JP Morgan, including by the former chief executive of its asset management division and investment bank, whose inappropriate relationship with Epstein should have been evident to the bank.”
The second amended complaint by the U.S. Virgin Islands also adds a Fifth Count, charging JPMorgan Chase with obstruction. It reads in part:
“By providing financing for Epstein’s sex trafficking organization from at least 2000 through about August 2013, and concealing its actions thereafter, JP Morgan obstructed, interfered with, and prevented the federal government’s enforcement of the TVPA [Trafficking Victims Protection Act] against Epstein. To the extent that the federal government was able to ultimately charge Epstein with TVPA violations, the filing of these charges was delayed by JP Morgan’s actions. Because of that delay, women and girls in the Virgin Islands were coercively caused to engage in commercial sex acts.”
The newly filed second amended complaint also incorporates information obtained from a deposition of Mary Erdoes, the Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase’s Asset & Wealth Management division and one of the bank’s highest ranking women. Much of the new information is stunning in terms of just how much it alleges that the bank knew about Epstein’s sex trafficking while it displayed a callous disregard for the underage girls being impacted by its failing to take action....
....MUCH MORE
And regarding the rescue of First Republic WoW has on offer:
April 10—First Republic Bank: Dark Pool Trading by “Rescuers” Exploded in Volume as FRC Tanked
