Newly revealed emails shed recent mild on JPMorgan’s cozy ties with Jeffrey Epstein, suggesting that prime bankers on the Wall Avenue large bent over backwards to accommodate the lifeless pedophile as he helped them line up profitable shoppers — together with Google and its co-founder Sergey Brin.
The US Virgin Islands filed explosive court papers on Tuesday in Manhattan federal courtroom to bolster its allegation that Epstein performed a key function as an funding “advisor” to the Silicon Valley search large and Brin, whose private portfolio of over $4 billion was among the bank’s largest.
In an e mail from 2006 that was unsealed Tuesday, Mary Erdoes — a star banker who’s now the CEO of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth administration division — urged colleagues to arrange a crew in New York quite than in San Francisco, the place Google and Brin are based mostly, to handle the accounts, in response to the courtroom paperwork.
Erdoes wrote within the e mail, which had the topic line “google”: “That is NOTHING to do with the skills of the SF crew. That is solely due to our must have a NY crew cowl a NY individual, Jeffrey Epstein (because the advisor to the companions).”
That very same day, Ann Borowiec — then a managing director at JPMorgan’s NJ Personal Financial institution — shared a message with the topic line “large new enterprise oppy,” informing colleagues {that a} New York-based crew had been picked “to work with Jeffrey Epstein (advisor) on enterprise oppy related to GRATS which can be terminating for Google founders,” the submitting confirmed.
Borowiec was seemingly referring to Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, which JPMorgan describes on its site as “an environment friendly technique to switch wealth with little or no present tax legal responsibility.”
Additionally that day, Borowiec emailed a number of different JPMorgan staff, informing them: “We’re establishing a convention name. …It’s to get the required background on the potential funding mgt alternative related to Jeffrey Epstein (advisor) to the trusts arrange on behalf of the Google founder’s youngsters.”
It’s unclear if Borowiec was referring to Brin, although banker Robert A. Keller wrote in a memo when Brin turned a JPMorgan consumer: “We work very intently with the Sergey Brin household workplace … and talk with them at the very least 1 x per day.”
Brin, a 49-year-old father-of-three, is now No. 11 on the Forbes list with a internet value of $104.2 billion.
JP Morgan responded to the lawsuit’s allegations right now, saying, “Somewhat than account for its personal failures to research and monitor this legal beneath its jurisdiction, USVI blames a financial institution that didn’t have USVI’s authority to implement any legislation.”
“Any affiliation with Epstein was a mistake and in hindsight we remorse it, however we didn’t assist him commit his heinous crimes,” a JPMorgan spokesperson added. “We might by no means have continued to do enterprise with him if we believed he was engaged in an ongoing intercourse trafficking operation.”
Google and Brin didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
One other e mail alternate included within the bombshell paperwork revealed that JPMorgan’s present chief government, Jamie Dimon, labored with a crew of different executives in addition to Epstein on the financial institution’s acquisition of funding administration agency Highbridge.
The so-called “Undertaking Alpha” group included Jes Staley — who would later develop into CEO of UK banking large Barclays earlier than he was toppled by the Epstein scandal in 2021 — Dimon, who hadn’t but taken over because the financial institution’s chief government, billionaire Highbridge co-founder Glenn Dubin and Epstein, amongst others.
As soon as JPMorgan accomplished its Highbridge buy in 2004, Staley requested that an e mail be despatched to Dimon and Dubin with Epstein blind-copied, in response to the courtroom papers.
He requested that the e-mail say: “You’ve executed an incredible job of bringing our companies collectively and delivering numbers…that can earn the envy of our business. Thanks for the partnership. We’re effectively on our technique to resume our place as one of the crucial revered asset and wealth managers.”
Although the US Virgin Islands alleged that Dimon and Epstein labored on this acquisition collectively, Dimon testified in a deposition in May that he by no means had any dealings with Epstein, and didn’t even know the intercourse offender was a JPMorgan consumer till his 2019 arrest.
Epstein, who dedicated suicide whereas awaiting trial in 2019, was a JPMorgan consumer from 1998 to 2013.
Dimon has called the bank’s relationship with Epstein a “terrible mistake” but says he was unaware of it at the time, as an alternative pointing the finger at Staley, who was the CEO of JPMorgan’s Asset Administration division in 2004, when Dimon first joined the financial institution.
Staley, however, has contradicted the claim, saying that he and Dimon did, in reality, talk about Epstein in 2006, when Epstein was first arrested, and once more in 2008, when he pleaded responsible to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.
Staley and Dimon had been colleagues at JPMorgan till 2009 when Staley left to go up Barclays.
The recent filing is the latest in a back-and-forth legal battle between JPMorgan and the US Virgin Islands, in which the US territory is seeking at least $190 million to settle the swimsuit that claims JPMorgan benefitted from Epstein’s notorious sex-trafficking ring whereas ignoring his sordid misdeeds.
The Virgin Islands’ counsel at Motley Rice declined to remark.
