NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase defended itself on Tuesday against a lawsuit by the U.S. Virgin Islands accusing it of empowering Jeffrey Epstein to abuse teenage girls by arguing in court papers that it was the islands, not the bank, that enabled the financier to commit his crimes.
Lawyers for the bank said in the Manhattan federal court filing that the government of the Virgin Islands was complicit, letting high ranking officials be bought off by Epstein and actively working with him while “reaping the benefits of his wealth.”
“He gave them money, advice, influence, and favors. In exchange, they shielded and even rewarded him,” providing lucrative tax breaks worth millions of dollars, they wrote.
Most troubling, they said, was that officials from the islands “protected Epstein, fostering the perfect conditions for Epstein’s criminal conduct to continue undetected.”
The lawyers added: “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.”