 "JPMorgan settles claims that it enabled Epstein's sex trafficking acts")
JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay USD 75 million to the US Virgin Islands to settle claims that the bank enabled the sex trafficking acts of financier Jeffrey Epstein.
JPMorgan said on Tuesday that USD 55 million of the settlement will go toward local charities and assistance for victims. Another USD 20 million will go toward legal fees.
The Virgin Islands, where Epstein had an estate, sued JPMorgan last year, saying its investigation has revealed that the financial services giant enabled Epstein's recruiters to pay victims and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York. He was found dead in jail in August of that year, at age 66.
Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.
According to a class action lawsuits, JPMorgan provided Epstein loans and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013 even though it was aware of his participation in sex trafficking. The anonymous victim, referred to as Jane Doe, said she was sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 and 2013.