Jes Staley, left, developed a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein (right) when Staley ran JPMorgan’s asset-management unit. Photo Credit: BLOOMBERG NEWS/TOWN & COUNTRY.
An internal report from JPMorgan Chase showed that conversations between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and senior banking executive Jes Staley extended far beyond business, with Epstein reportedly setting up meetings between Staley and influential public officials, as well as intervening in Staley’s daughter’s attempts to get accepted in Columbia University’s PhD program.
Before settling a $290 million lawsuit from an anonymous woman who said the bank looked the other way while Epstein used his accounts there to facilitate his sex trafficking operations, JPMorgan sued Staley, claiming that he misled the bank about the relationship between himself and Epstein. The bank also claims that he was the one named by the woman as the JPMorgan executive who sexually assaulted her.
The U.S. Virgin Islands, currently suing the bank with much the same allegations as the recently settled action, claims that Epstein and Staley sent hundreds of emails between the two of them, and the report, published in 2019, finds that a decade ago Epstein had been trying to set up a meeting with Sultan Ahmed Bin Sualyem of Dubai, as well as Peter Mandelson, a British politician. The Sultan, the WSJ reports, was scheduled to attend more than one meeting at Epstein’s townhouse from 2011 to 2014. Mandelson, meanwhile, denied any professional or business relationship with Epstein and said he “very much regrets ever having been introduced.”
The more-than-cordial friendship between Epstein and Staley was reportedly a reciprocal one, with the banking executive sharing insider scoops about JPMorgan’s planned business deals and personnel changes in the C-suite. The two men referred to themselves as “family”, according to the report.
In one 2010 email exchange, Staley wrote, “Say hi to Snow White,” with Epstein asking him what character he would like next. “Beauty and the Beast,” was Staley’s response.
Columbia University has denied there ever being a meeting between its president and Jes Staley, as Epstein had promised him, and further denied that the president of the institution has ever known Epstein, “then or later.”
Meanwhile, JPMorgan has maintained that it had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities, and would never have continued with him as a customer for so long had it been aware.
Epstein was a client of JPMorgan from 2000 to 2013, years after his conviction on one count of child prostitution.
