‘Ultimate decider’ on Jeffrey Epstein was JPMorgan’s ex-top lawyer, says Jamie Dimon

Jamie Dimon has identified JPMorgan Chase’s former general counsel as the “ultimate decider” who had the authority to ax Jeffrey Epstein as a client, according to the bank’s chief executive’s oath.

Even though other officials, such as one of the bank’s most senior managers, Marie Erdő, were vouching for the sex offender, the bank’s top lawyer was the one who had the “ability to override” their decisions, Dimon said.

Dimon made the claim last week during a seven-hour deposition, a transcript of which has been seen by the Financial Times. He was responding to suggestions that the decision to retain Epstein was made by Erdős and Jess Staley, the disgraced financier’s former personal banker.

According to the transcript, attorneys for the US Virgin Islands — which is bringing one of two cases against JPMorgan — indicated that Steve Cutler, the bank’s top lawyer from 2007 to 2016, had been named as one of the executives responsible for keeping Epstein from the latter. I took the names of Erdo and Staley. His first arrest for sex offenses in 2006.

“If (Cutler) allowed them to make that decision, it’s because he didn’t step up and say, ‘You’ve got to go,'” Dimon said. “But he could do that.”

Dimon’s statement was taken in connection with two cases in which JPMorgan has been accused of ignoring red flags related to Epstein and profiting from human trafficking. One has been brought by a woman who said she was abused by Epstein, and another by the US Virgin Islands, where the late sex offender was home.

Court filings in the two cases detail how Erdős, who now runs the bank’s $4tn asset and wealth management division, and Staley, whether or not Epstein should be removed as a client, and how they are personally were involved in several internal conversations about formally visiting their residences. ,

In 2011, Cutler sent an email that read: “I want to put this and (Epstein) behind us. Not a person we should be doing business with, period.” No. He should not be a customer.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. He remained a client of JP Morgan as of 2013.

In his testimony, Dimon said, “Mr. Cutler had the ultimate authority to kick him out if he felt it had gone too far.” “I think the final decider would have been the general counsel of the company.”

Cutler, a former director of enforcement at the US Securities and Exchange Commission who later left JPMorgan to go into private practice at Simpson Thatcher, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

JP Morgan said: “If the firm had believed he was involved in an ongoing sex trafficking operation, Epstein would not have been retained as a client. Lastly, we are sorry he was ever a client.”

In his statement, Dimon, 67, said he first learned that Epstein had held accounts at JPMorgan for 15 years about four years ago, when the disgraced financier was arrested on federal sex crime charges.

“I don’t remember knowing anything about Jeffrey Epstein until the stories came out sometime in 2019,” Dimon said. “I was surprised that I . . . had never even heard of the man, and how connected he was with so many people.

David Boise, a lawyer for the unnamed Epstein accuser suing JPMorgan, said Wednesday that Dimon had acknowledged that the bank’s “top executives knew for years that Epstein was a convicted sex offender who continued to target young women”. .

“Epstein took out hundreds of millions of dollars a year in cash to fund everything he was doing, and . . . used his web of JPMorgan accounts,” Boies said.

He added: “If, as he claims, Mr. Dimon was the only person in New York who never heard of Epstein before July 2019, that is an indictment, not a defense.”

Dimon also denied being informed about Epstein’s accounts or the behavior by Staley, whom the bank is suing for allegedly withholding information about Epstein and vouching for him internally.

Earlier Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Staley claimed to have personally spoken to Dimon about the account on several occasions — an allegation that JPMorgan called “false.”