The Jeffrey Epstein case continues to have significant repercussions even after his suspicious death, which occurred in 2019. According to official information, the American financier committed suicide in his cell in a New York prison.
Epstein was a billionaire who made headlines in newspapers around the world after being accused by American justice of being the mastermind of a minor sex trafficking network.
He was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York and was awaiting trial in prison when he died.
According to American prosecutors, between 2002 and 2005, Epstein and his ex-girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, recruited several underage girls, most of them in socially vulnerable situations, to take them to the American billionaire’s private islands. , located in the American Virgin Islands. There, both Epstein and other men sexually exploited them.
In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced by American courts to 20 years in prison for being Epstein’s accomplice. But it wasn’t just her who had her image plastered across the world’s media because of Epstein’s crimes: several banks and influential people in world society were also marked by the closeness they had with the American financier and to this day are closing legal agreements to distance yourself from the case.
Prince Andrew of England, son of the late Queen Elizabeth II; former US presidents Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Donald Trump (2017-2021); as well as executives from several internationally recognized banks, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Barclays Plc, had links to Epstein exposed through photos or financial transactions.
The list of people who met or were close to Epstein also includes Bill Gates, leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky and even the current head of the CIA, William Burns.
Recently, JP Morgan agreed to a US$75 million (R$378 million) lawsuit settlement to settle a lawsuit related to the case filed by the US Virgin Islands.
The financial institution was being accused by U.S. Virgin Islands prosecutors of facilitating the sex trafficking scheme orchestrated by Epstein, who was a former client of the bank. The details of this agreement were revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian.
Of the total US$75 million, JP Morgan agreed to allocate US$55 million (R$273 million) to charitable organizations in the US Virgin Islands dedicated to combating human trafficking in the region.
The remaining US$20 million (R$100 million) will cover legal expenses incurred by the US Virgin Islands during the legal process.
“The agreement includes several substantial commitments from JP Morgan Chase to identify, report and cut support for potential human trafficking, including the establishment and implementation of comprehensive policies and procedures,” the island’s prosecutors responsible for the agreement said in a statement. .
Authorities in the American archipelago also announced that they will use US$10 million (approximately R$50.3 million) from the agreement to create an assistance fund for victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse.
“This settlement is a historic victory for survivors and state law enforcement, and should serve as a wake-up call on Wall Street about the legal responsibilities of banks to detect and prevent human trafficking,” said Ariel Smith, U.S. Attorney -general of the American Virgin Islands.
Last year, the Virgin Islands filed this lawsuit against JP Morgan, alleging that the bank had knowledge of Epstein’s minor sex trafficking scheme and that it had not reported the billionaire’s suspicious transactions to the appropriate authorities.
In June of this year, JP Morgan had already agreed to pay US$290 million (about R$1.4 billion) in a settlement with Epstein’s victims to end a similar lawsuit brought by Manhattan Federal Court prosecutors.
Also in June, Deutsche Bank, which had taken Epstein on as a client after he was ousted by JP Morgan in 2013, agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims to settle a third lawsuit in the same court.
Earlier this year, a report by the American news agency Bloomberg revealed how Epstein still haunts the Wall Street elite, even after his death.
According to the information, several executives and companies in the financial sector maintained ties with the financier, seeking to benefit from his wealth, influence and network of contacts.
Some of these executives and companies have expressed regret over their associations with Epstein, while others face lawsuits or investigations for their conduct to this day, as is the case with JP Morgan.
According to information from Bloomberg, some executives at Goldman Sachs, for example, were surprised and perplexed by the revelation earlier this year of the ties that their then main lawyer Kathy Ruemmler had with Jeffrey Epstein.
Ruemmler currently holds the position of general counsel at the bank and was hired by the financial institution in 2020. According to reports, she had already communicated to Goldman Sachs leadership about her past interactions with Epstein. Ruemmler explained that the financier had offered her “the use of his network of contacts to help drum up business while she was in the private sector.”
Ruemmler, who was a prosecutor at the US Department of Justice and a White House counselor during the administration of former President Barack Obama (2009-2017), of the Democratic Party, built ties with Epstein after joining the private sector in 2014.
Documents obtained by the American newspaper Wall Street Journal show that she had more than 30 meetings with Epstein in the years before his death. She had also taken responsibility for visiting apartments that the billionaire intended to buy.
Ruemmler was also with Epstein on the day he was charged in 2019 with multiple sexual crimes.
Despite her closeness to Epstein, the counselor is not being investigated by American authorities so far.
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg earlier this year that he was “very sad that we have any relationship with that man.”
Dimon said the bank would have taken “different steps” if it had known of “the extent of Epstein’s actions and behavior.”
At Citigroup, banker Paul Barrett left the company after it was revealed that he scheduled five meetings with Epstein between 2014 and 2017, when he was still at JP Morgan.
At Bank of America, a wealth advisor was ousted due to his relationship with Epstein while also working at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.
The American financial industry still faces harsh criticism and theories for its prolonged involvement with Epstein, which sheds light on the complex relationships between Wall Street and controversial figures.
The Epstein case exposed the shadows of the world of billionaires and power, revealing a network of abuses, corruption and impunity that shocked public opinion. Four years after his death, several questions remain unanswered and many victims are still waiting for justice.
#Legal #agreements #convictions #Epstein #case #continues #resonate #years #financiers #death