JPMorgan Chase calls U.S. Virgin Islands complicit in Jeffrey Epstein crimes

JPMorgan Chase in a court filing Tuesday called the U.S. Virgin Islands “complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein,” saying the sex predator gave high-ranking officials there money, advice and favors in exchange for looking the other way when he trafficked young women to be abused on his island getaway.

“For two decades, and for long after JPMC exited Epstein as a client, the entity that most directly failed to protect public safety and most actively facilitated and benefited from Epstein’s continued criminal activity was the plaintiff in this case — the USVI government itself,” the bank said in the Manhattan federal court filing.

“Rather than stop him, they helped him,” JPMorgan said, citing millions of dollars in tax incentives and other benefits the territory gave Epstein.

That claim comes as JPMorgan defends itself against a civil lawsuit by the Virgin Islands, which alleges that the bank knowingly enabled Epstein’s sex trafficking and benefited from it when he was a customer from 1998 through 2013.

A spokesman for theVirgin Islands’ attorney general’s office told CNBC on Tuesday, “JPMorgan Chase facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, and should be held accountable for violating the law.”

“This is an obvious attempt to shift blame away from JPMorgan Chase, which had a legal responsibility to report the evidence in its possession of Epstein’s human trafficking, and failed to do so,” the spokesman said.

The bank’s filing Tuesday asked Judge Jed Rakoff to deny a motion by the Virgin Islands that would preclude JPMorgan from raising certain so-called affirmative defenses to the lawsuit.

“USVI’s motion seeks to strike only those specific defenses that threaten to expose its relationship with Epstein,” the filing said.

In a footnote, the filing said the Virgin Islands had three governors over the past 16 years: John de Jongh, Kenneth Mapp and current governor Albert Bryan Jr.

“As detailed herein, Epstein had close ties to each of them,” that footnote said.

Earlier Tuesday, another court filing for the first time revealed that Bryan is scheduled to be deposed June 6 for the lawsuit. A source familiar with the situation told CNBC that JPMorgan requested the deposition of Bryan, who has been governor since 2019.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is scheduled to be deposed in the suit Friday in New York.

Rakoff last week authorized the Virgin Islands to serve a subpoena for Tesla CEO Elon Musk on his electric car company, seeking documents that Musk may have showing any communications involving him, Epstein and JPMorgan.

That subpoena is based on suspicion by the territory that Epstein may have referred Musk or tried to refer him to the bank as a client.

Epstein, a former friend of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, maintained a home on a private island in the territory where he sexually abused many young women over the years. He used money from his JPMorgan accounts to pay women and fly them there.

In its filing Tuesday, JPMorgan noted that when Epstein was released from a Florida jail after pleading guilty to procuring a minor for sex, he tried…