JPMorgan Chase & Co. was ordered to turn over more records from Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon in a lawsuit filed by the US Virgin Islands accusing the bank of facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking.
US District Judge Jed Rakoff issued the order on Thursday in Manhattan federal court. His ruling comes a day after the bank sued former executive Jes Staley, whose relationship with Epstein is at the center of the suit by the USVI and another by Epstein victims.
The USVI previously said the bank was objecting to turning over documents from after 2014. The territory wanted Dimon’s documents into 2019, saying it had reason to believe the bank’s allegedly unlawful conduct continued after the bank ended its relationship with Epstein in 2013.
JPMorgan had called the USVI’s claims “specious” and denied that Dimon had anything to do with the bank’s decision to retain Epstein as a client.
“Dimon is not relevant to this action,” JPMorgan said in court filing late last month. “He was not involved in any decisions regarding Epstein’s account.”
Representatives for JPMorgan declined to comment on Rakoff’s ruling.
The part of USVI’s filing describing the alleged post-2013 conduct was redacted, but JPMorgan said in its response that it consisted of a single 2015 email between a bank employee and Epstein about a possible line of credit for a third party who was already a bank customer.
According to the bank, the USVI’s request was “wholly disproportionate” to its “paltry” claim of relevance.
The case is USVI v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, 22-cv-10904-UA, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
