Bank of America, Bank of New York sued for alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein

A pistillate who claims she was abused by Epstein alleges the banks were utilized to nonstop payments for sex-trafficking victims.

A pistillate who says she was abused by the precocious financier and enactment offender Jeffrey Epstein has sued Bank of America and the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), alleging the banks knowingly provided fiscal services that enabled Epstein’s sex-trafficking cognition for years.

Bank of America, the second-largest slope successful the United States, declined to remark connected the allegations. BNY did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

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The woman, referred to successful tribunal papers connected Wednesday arsenic Jane Doe, is seeking an unspecified magnitude of damages from some banks.

She is represented by instrumentality firms Boies Schiller and Edwards Henderson, who antecedently secured settlements of $75m and $290m with Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan, respectively, implicit their alleged fiscal ties to Epstein.

Neither Deutsche Bank nor JPMorgan admitted wrongdoing successful agreeing to settle.

Congress probes Epstein case

Epstein died by termination successful 2019 successful jailhouse portion awaiting proceedings connected sex-trafficking charges. The circumstances of his death, arsenic good arsenic his societal relationships with affluent and almighty individuals, person fuelled theories that others were progressive successful his crimes.

His lawsuit has go a governmental headache for President Donald Trump’s administration.

After pledging during the 2024 run to release files from the Department of Justice’s probe into Epstein, the medication reversed people this year, prompting an outcry from Trump’s blimpish basal and members of Congress.

The House Oversight Committee is present investigating the Epstein case.

In some lawsuits, Jane Doe said she met Epstein successful 2011 portion she was surviving successful Russia. She said she became financially babelike connected Epstein, who raped her, forcibly touched her and forced her to prosecute successful enactment acts with different women astatine slightest 100 times betwixt 2011 and 2019.

“As Congress works toward unraveling however Jeffrey Epstein was capable to orchestrate his transgression enactment trafficking endeavor for decades without detection, we are taking different important measurement guardant toward justness for survivors,” Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for Jane Doe, said successful a statement.

Plaintiff says Epstein paid her rent

Jane Doe said she opened a Bank of America relationship successful 2013 astatine the absorption of Richard Kahn, Epstein’s erstwhile accountant, and that Kahn regularly sent her wealth for rent done the account.

Lawyers for Kahn did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Doe said that, successful 2015, Kahn’s adjunct told her Epstein was adding her to the payroll for a “sham company” and that she would person funds done her Bank of America account. She said she did not cognize the intent of those payments.

Her lawyers wrote that those transactions should person raised reddish flags for Bank of America. Epstein had pleaded blameworthy to state-level prostitution charges successful Florida successful 2008 arsenic portion of an statement that allowed him to debar national prosecution.

The suit against BNY said the slope gave a enactment of recognition to MC2, a modelling bureau that Epstein and French exemplary scout Jean-Luc Brunel utilized to traffic victims, according to the lawsuit.

In total, BNY processed $378m successful payments to women trafficked by Epstein, the suit said.

Brunel was arrested successful December 2020 and was recovered dormant successful jailhouse successful 2022, according to Parisian prosecutors.

Both lawsuits said the banks should person filed Suspicious Activity Reports with the US Department of the Treasury. The complaints besides allege that specified reports could person helped instrumentality enforcement halt Epstein sooner.