JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has testified that he by no means heard of Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes in opposition to teenage women and younger girls till the financier was arrested in 2019, in keeping with a transcript of the videotaped deposition launched Wednesday.
Dimon mentioned he first heard about it “when the story blew extensive open. He was arrested, and all of the tales got here out about all of the folks he is aware of. And the rationale I do not forget that is I used to be stunned that I didn’t learn about it earlier than.”
Requested by a lawyer if he’d ever heard the identify 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 in opposition to 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 women and younger girls.
The financial institution, in addition to denying the allegations, has sued considered one of 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 prices that he sexually abused dozens of ladies, some as younger as 14.
Based on the lawsuits filed late final yr, JPMorgan offered Epstein with giant quantities of money from 1998 by August 2013 regardless that it knew about his intercourse trafficking practices.
The 416-page deposition, parts of which have been closely redacted with whole pages blacked out, was launched publicly by an settlement amongst attorneys within the instances.
Confronted on the deposition with an electronic 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 do not know what they’re referring to right here,” he mentioned.
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 mentioned, “I don’t know what he thought on the time. He was clearly misinformed. I by no means — this by no means passed off.”
“I don’t assume Jeff Epstein ever organized for me to fulfill with anyone, to my data,” he mentioned.
Epstein had a detailed relationship with Jes Staley, who ran a number of components of JPMorgan, together with its funding financial institution and wealth administration arm, till Staley left the financial institution in 2013. Staley went on to change into CEO of the British financial institution Barclays, however needed to step down from that job when Epstein indictment was revealed.
JPMorgan is attempting to make Staley a defendant in its Epstein authorized instances, 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 the event 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 government officer of the financial institution, mentioned, ‘We have to do away with this man,’ no matter whether or not the overall counsel informed you that that was the proper factor to do?”
“I feel everybody concerned, had they recognized then what is thought in the present day, together with me, would have taken that place,” he answered.
