JPMorgan Defense Just ‘Hyperbolic Conspiracy Theories,’ AG Alleges

JPMorgan Chase is trying to deflect blame — and smear the V.I. government and its current and former employees in the process — in its defense against the USVI’s lawsuit alleging the bank aided Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme, the V.I. Attorney General’s Office said in a court filing Tuesday.

The filing comes in response to JPMorgan’s opposition to the government’s motion to strike the bank’s affirmative defenses, which allege that the USVI is equally culpable because it gave Epstein’s companies lucrative tax breaks and actively facilitated and benefitted from his activities.

“For two decades, and for long after JPMC exited Epstein as a client [in 2013], 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,” JPMorgan alleged in its opposition to the government’s motion, filed May 23 in Manhattan federal court and updated on May 25.

Epstein, who died by apparent suicide in August 2019 while in custody in New York on federal sex trafficking charges, declared his private island estate off St. Thomas as his primary residence and moved his sex offender registration from Florida to the USVI following his release from a Florida prison in 2009 after serving 13 months for procuring a minor for prostitution.