JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified at a deposition in New York on Friday that he had no involvement in the accounts of longtime buyer Jeffrey Epstein, the financial institution stated.

Dimon was being deposed for lawsuits accusing JPMorgan of facilitating and making the most of Epstein’s intercourse trafficking of younger girls, which he financed with cash he had on deposit there.

“Our CEO reaffirmed after his deposition that, as he has previously said, that he never met with him, never emailed him, does not recall ever discussing his accounts internally, and was not involved in any decisions about his account,” stated a financial institution spokeswoman. “There are millions and millions of emails and other documents that have been produced in this case and not one comes close to even suggesting that he had any role in decisions about Epstein’s accounts.”

The spokeswoman added: “As we have said, we now know that Epstein’s behavior was monstrous, and his victims deserve justice. In hindsight, any association with him was a mistake and we regret it, but these suits are misdirected as we did not help him commit his heinous crimes.”

Dimon gave his deposition at JPMorgan’s headquarters in Manhattan. The financial institution earlier misplaced an effort to dismiss the fits by the plaintiffs – the federal government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and an nameless Epstein accuser.

The fits declare that JPMorgan, the largest financial institution in the United States, saved Epstein as a buyer even after studying he was being investigated for sexually abusing underage women in Florida and after he pleaded responsible in a state cost there in 2008 to paying for intercourse from a minor.

The financial institution is accused in the complaints in U.S. District Court in Manhattan of doing so in order to maintain Epstein, who saved tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in accounts there, regardless of inside issues about his slimy popularity.

The Virgin Islands says Epstein used frequent money withdrawals he produced from these accounts to pay for younger girls to journey to the American territory in order that he and others may abuse them at his residence on a non-public island he owned.

“Human trafficking was the [principal] business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the Virgin Islands’ suit says.

Dimon’s deposition was taken in non-public. The questions he was requested and the solutions he gave would solely change into public if they’re used in court docket filings and proceedings, or if they’re leaked.

Also on Friday afternoon, Judge Jed Rakoff held a listening to on a request by legal professionals for the accuser to certify her lawsuit as a category motion grievance, which may add dozens of potential accusers as plaintiffs. JPMorgan opposes that request. Rakoff is predicted to rule by late June on that subject.

In addition to questioning Dimon below oath, the Virgin Islands has issued a flurry of subpoenas in search of paperwork associated to Epstein and JPMorgan from a lot of high-profile individuals the federal government suspects Epstein tried to recruit as fellow purchasers of the financial institution.

They embrace Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, former Disney government Michael Ovitz, Hyatt Hotels government chairman Thomas Pritzker and Mort Zuckerman, the billionaire actual property investor.

Dimon’s deposition comes greater than every week after Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein victims to settle a would-be class motion lawsuit by one in all his accusers. Deutsche Bank had taken on Epstein as a buyer after JPMorgan severed ties with him in 2013, after protecting him as a consumer for 15 years.

JPMorgan has stated Dimon had not reviewed Epstein’s accounts when he was a consumer there from 1998 by 2013, the 12 months that JPMorgan severed its relationship with him.

Epstein died six years later from suicide in a New York jail a month after federal authorities charged him with trafficking women for intercourse.

The submitting particularly says that Epstein paid tuition for the children of John de Jongh and his spouse, Cecile, when John served as Virgin Islands governor and when Cecile labored for Epstein managing his corporations in the territory.

Cecile additionally allegedly made efforts to safe pupil visas for younger girls linked to Epstein, and was his “primary conduit for spreading money and influence throughout the USVI government.”

The Washington Post on Friday printed particulars of a deposition earlier taken of Mary Erdoes, who runs JPMorgan’s asset and wealth administration division.

“Oh boy,” Erdoes wrote in a 2011 e mail to a different financial institution government after she came upon Epstein’s standing as a intercourse offender because of his Florid conviction had been affirmed, The Washington Post reported.

The newspaper stated that was “at least the sixth time Erdoes … had been alerted to Epstein’s criminal or civil legal trouble for sex crimes.”