JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, alleged in a new court filing on Thursday that the wife of the former governor of the US Virgin Islands and other officials in the territory helped Jeffrey Epstein circumvent sex offender laws and They helped him find his alleged victims.
The bank’s new filing in US District Court is part of an ongoing civil lawsuit the Virgin Islands filed last year accusing the company of profiting financially from Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking operation in the Islands. Virgins, where he owned a small island, and failed to report his suspicious financial activity.
JPMorgan Chase, which denies any responsibility for Epstein’s alleged schemes, hit back on US soil this week, saying in its filing that Cecile de Jongh, wife of former Governor John de Jongh, facilitated a “quid pro quo relationship” between Epstein and the figures. most powerful on the island while she was first lady from 2007 to 2015.
“Epstein’s primary conduit for spreading money and influence throughout the USVI government was First Lady de Jongh,” Thursday’s filing alleges, saying that she “prompted donations from Epstein to support her husband and allies ”. She also paid him $200,000 in 2007 alone for her administrative work at her companies and paid school fees for her and the governor’s children, the bank said in her filing.
In return, lawyers for JPMorgan Chase say, de Jongh used his influence with high-ranking public officials to help Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution, obtain student visas for three women involved in his alleged sex trafficking ring, arrange for their enrollment at a local university, find them employment, and coordinate their travel to the territory.
“In short, in exchange for Epstein’s cash and gifts, USVI made his life easier,” the filing reads. “The government mitigated any burden of her sex offender status. And he made sure no one asked too many questions about transporting her and keeping the girls on his island.”
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on child sex trafficking charges, but committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell before his trial.
A spokesman for the Virgin Islands attorney general called the new filing by JPMorgan Chase “an obvious attempt to deflect blame.”
De Jongh has not responded to media inquiries about the allegations against him.