WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Prominent multinational bank JP Morgan Chase reportedly processed transactions totaling more than $1 billion over 16 years from convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands argued.
In a recent hearing, attorney Mimi Liu argued JP Morgan Chase’s financial transactions with Epstein had been rooted in human trafficking from the beginning.
“Epstein’s entire business with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire business with Jeffrey Epstein was human trafficking,” she said. “JPMorgan was a full-service bank for Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.”
According to NBC, Liu additionally pointed to “$9 million in transfers to girls and women, many with Eastern European names, and suspicious cash withdrawals from Epstein accounts,” which she argued were associated with more than “20,000 unlawful sex acts facilitated by JPMorgan.”
Liu said JP Morgan Chase flagged the transactions from Epstein with the U.S. Treasury Department as “suspicious” after the financier’s death in 2019, Reuters reported. Epstein was found dead of apparent suicide in his cell at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in August 2019, where he was being held on charges of trafficking underaged girls to be raped by himself and wealthy associates.
“The only reason that JPMorgan finally after 16 years reported the billion dollars in suspicious transactions for Jeffrey Epstein is because he was arrested, and then he was dead,” Liu argued.
During the hearing, however, JP Morgan Chase attorney Felicia Ellsworth rejected allegations against the bank, noting that it had reported the suspicious financial activity to the government a total of six times going back as far as 2002, but the government did not respond.
NBC reported that it reached out to JPMorgan Chase and the Treasury Department for comment but neither immediately responded.
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Accusations by the attorneys come after the U.S. Virgin Islands filed a lawsuit last year against JP Morgan Chase for its involvement with Epstein.
The U.S. territory, where Epstein infamously owned two private islands, has argued that the bank “ignored red flags that Epstein was running a sex trafficking operation because he was a lucrative client,” Reuters reported.
The Virgin Islands are seeking at least $190 million in related damages.
For its part, JPMorgan Chase has called its connection with Epstein a “mistake” and denied liability while simultaneously arguing that the Virgin Islands’ top-ranking officials had a “quid pro quo relationship with” Epstein for decades, an allegation the territory has denied, according to NBC.
The case against the bank is slated to go to trial next month.
Meanwhile, the moves by the U.S. Virgin Islands to seek financial restitution from JP Morgan Chase come after the bank previously settled with Epstein’s victims for $290 million in June “for ignoring his sex offending and continuing to do business with [him] until 2013, five years after the late [pedophile] pleaded guilty to child prostitution charges,” The Independent reported.