(Adds comments from JPMorgan, U.S. Virgin Islands, paragraphs 5-6)
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, June 16 (Reuters) – Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, will not have to sit for a second deposition in the U.S. Virgin Islands’ lawsuit over the bank’s work for Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and sex offender.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan on Friday denied “in its entirety” the U.S. Virgin Islands’ request to again have Dimon and another JPMorgan employee testify under oath.
The territory, where Epstein owned two neighboring islands, is seeking damages from JPMorgan for allegedly ignoring Epstein’s sexual abuses and letting him set up a sex trafficking operation there.
Epstein was a JPMorgan client from 1998 until the bank terminated him in 2013. He died of an apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, one month after being arrested on sex trafficking charges.
JPMorgan declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Virgin Islands said the territory is confident it has “more than sufficient” evidence to show JPMorgan “facilitated and concealed Jeffrey Epstein’s heinous crimes in violation of the law.”
The bank has said Dimon was “crystal clear” in his May 26 deposition that he knew nothing about Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and teenage girls while Epstein was a client.
Dimon said he did not recall discussing Epstein’s accounts at the time, and had barely heard of Epstein until his July 2019 arrest.
On June 12, JPMorgan agreed in principle to pay $290 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by dozens of women who said Epstein sexually abused them.
The bank is suing former executive Jes Staley, a onetime Epstein friend and later Barclays’ chief executive, to cover losses in both lawsuits for allegedly concealing what he knew about Epstein’s crimes.
Staley has denied wrongdoing. An Oct. 23 trial is scheduled.
The case is U.S. Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-10904. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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