Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have asked a federal court to throw out lawsuits filed by Jeffrey Epstein’s victims accusing the banks of enabling the late pedophile’s sex trafficking network.
In motions to dismiss the class action suits, lawyers for Deutsche Bank said the claims did not “come close to adequately alleging” that the bank, which provided banking services to Epstein between 2013 and 2018, was part of his sexual abuse ring.
“All of the plantiff’s claims are deficient and none can be maintained,” the motion, filed on Friday, states.
The victims filed legal action against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank in November, alleging Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise could not have “existed or flourished” without the complicity of the banks.
Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019 but found dead in his prison cell in New York weeks later. His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of similar charges last December. During her trial, a JPMorgan banker testified that Epstein wired her $31 million, money prosecutors characterized as Maxwell’s payment for procuring young girls for the financier.
In the current civil case, Epstein’s victims accused JPMorgan of “financially benefiting from participating” in Epstein’s sex trafficking through providing financial support from 1998 to August 2013. Deutsche Bank was accused of knowing it would earn millions of dollars from its relationship with Epstein.
The suits, filed separately in federal court in Manhattan, are seeking unspecified damages for violations of sex trafficking and racketeering laws and the newly-enacted New York Adult Survivor’s Act.
Lawyers for Deutsche Bank argue the victims’ complaint provides no factual allegation that the bank knew or should have known about Epstein’s sex trafficking. Rather the bank was providing “routine banking services to a client, nothing more.”
The complaint also “plainly established that it was Epstein’s conduct that was the direct cause” of the victims’ injuries, not the bank, according to Deutsche Bank.
JPMorgan’s motion was similar and requested that the court dismiss all claims. Both banks stated they ended their relationship with Epstein after The Miami Herald published in 2018 allegations about the financier’s abuse of young women and teenagers.
JPMorgan’s lawyers wrote in their motion that the survivor, who filed the class action suit, was entitled to justice but that the claim was directed at the wrong party and so is “legally meritless.”
Ties to Epstein led to career downfalls for former Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley, who formerly headed JPMorgan’s private bank, and Apollo Global Management LLC co-founder Leon Black. Both have denied knowing about or participating in inappropriate conduct with Epstein.
The case is Jane Doe 1 v. Deutsche Bank, 22-cv-10018, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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