Newly unsealed Epstein records shed light on years of his financial transactions with Wall St. figures

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York via CNN Newsource)

One month after Jeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, JPMorgan Chase reported to U.S. authorities of more than one billion dollars in transactions it viewed as suspicious, according to newly unsealed court records.

The notification was made on Sept. 26, 2019, in a suspicious activity report, which is a kind of confidential report financial institutions file with the Treasury Department to flag potentially nefarious activity.

JPMorgan’s report highlights over US$1 billion in transactions Epstein engaged in from October 2003 until July 2019 with numerous related companies, Wall Street titans, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report were linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.

The bank wrote in the SAR it was flagging the transactions because of negative media about Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors, media reports of allegations Epstein misappropriating money as an investment adviser, his use of multiple accounts, the Russian banks, and his relationships with two U.S. presidents.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking underaged girls. He died weeks later by suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting trial.

Judge Jed Rakoff ordered the unsealing of the records, which were part of a lawsuit between the U.S. Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, following requests by The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action lawsuit from survivors of Epstein and an additional $75 million to settle with USVI, where Epstein owned an island. There was no admission of wrongdoing in these settlements.

The documents are the latest in a slow release of materials tied to Epstein as public demand for accountability and transparency about Epstein has gone global. Thursday, King Charles III took the extraordinary step of stripping his brother Andrew of his prince title. The U.S. Justice Department remains under pressure to release more information about its investigation into Epstein, and House lawmakers are taking depositions for their investigation.

Included in the hundreds of pages of unsealed documents are emails between Epstein and Jes Staley, a former top official at JPMorgan bank, who in 2021 resigned as head of Barclays bank following media scrutiny over his long relationship with Epstein. This year, Staley said he didn’t know about Epstein’s involvement with underaged girls but admitted in court that he had sex with one of Epstein’s assistants.

Among the pages are emails between Epstein and Staley, with Epstein suggesting he could set up meetings for Staley to recruit new clients including the co-founders of Google and heads of nations. None of the individuals were accused of any wrongdoing.

Prior to Epstein’s death in 2019, JPMorgan filed a number of SARs involving the disgraced financier’s accounts, and the documents show banking officials shared news articles about Epstein’s alleged activities. JPMorgan closed its accounts with Epstein in 2013, five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges and reached a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida.

The newly unsealed records include the SARs, including one dating as far back as 2002, as well as the last one filed in September 2019.

“Generally, the only new material here is the SARs themselves. Those basically summarize financial information produced in litigation, much of which has been public for years. The SARs do confirm what’s been inferred all along: the bank filed SARs about Epstein early on, and specifically when it exited Epstein from the bank in 2013 – and repeatedly between 2013 and 2019, as required,” said Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase. “It does not appear that anyone in the government or law enforcement acted on those SARs for years.”

In the batch of documents, there’s a letter from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida which in 2007 sought records from Bear Stearns, one of Epstein’s banks that was later acquired by JPMorgan, as part of its then investigation into Epstein that resulted in the non-prosecution agreement.

One of the biggest Wall Street names mentioned on the list of transactions on the 2019 SAR is Leon Black, a long-time associate of Epstein, who has maintained that Epstein gave him financial advice.

“After an exhaustive investigation more than four years ago, the Dechert law firm concluded that Mr. Black paid Epstein only for tax and estate planning advice that saved him and his family billions of dollars. To imply that Epstein somehow had influence over Mr. Black is false and patently absurd,” Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, said in a statement. “Indeed, it was Mr. Black who fired Epstein because he was disruptive and believed the fees for his services were excessive. The Dechert Report also found that Mr. Black had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.”

The unsealed records include emails between Staley and Epstein about meeting in 2010 with then Prince Andrew. The then-Prince emailed Staley, “Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, has asked JPMorgan for banking records and suggested officials turned a blind eye to Epstein’s conduct to make millions of dollars in fees from his accounts.

In a recent response, the bank denied knowledge of Epstein’s activities, writing, “with the exception of former JPMC executive Jes Staley, the bank’s executives (current and former) are respected professionals who acted with integrity and would never have allowed Epstein to remain a client if they knew of his ongoing crimes.”

“The Firm deeply regrets having had Epstein as a client and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he engaged in ongoing criminal conduct,” the bank also said.