Jes Staley, the previous JPMorgan Chase government who’s being sued by the financial institution for allegedly failing to reveal his participation in Jeffrey Epstein’s intercourse crimes, should face trial alongside his former employer, a New York choose has dominated.
Staley on Monday misplaced his bid to have the claims by the financial institution separated from two lawsuits introduced in opposition to JPMorgan by an alleged Epstein sufferer and the US Virgin Islands, the place the late paedophile had a house.
JPMorgan’s claims in opposition to Staley have been “intently associated” to these made within the different civil lawsuits, Decide Jed Rakoff dominated, including that Staley was a “key determine” within the complaints in opposition to the banks. Rakoff mentioned the trio of complaints can be heard collectively in October as deliberate.
The fits in opposition to JPMorgan accuse the financial institution of benefiting from human trafficking by sustaining Epstein as a consumer for 15 years regardless of quite a few inside warnings about his unlawful behaviour.
Staley, who was for a interval Epstein’s personal banker at JPMorgan, was sued by the financial institution final month after attorneys for the lender mentioned new particulars in regards to the relationship between the 2 males had emerged throughout an interview with the alleged Epstein sufferer. They mentioned the brand new particulars included allegations that the 66-year-old banker had sexually assaulted the girl in query.
The financial institution has branded the claims introduced in opposition to it as “meritless” and requested the courtroom to make its former government accountable for any damages that is perhaps awarded in opposition to it. It’s making an attempt to claw again tens of tens of millions of {dollars} of Staley’s pay.
“The details regarding [Staley] will due to this fact be a outstanding focus of the trial of the underlying case,” Rakoff wrote on Monday, including that it could make “no sense” to conform to Staley’s attorneys’ request to sever JPMorgan’s case in opposition to the manager from the 2 in opposition to the financial institution.
“None of Staley’s whines remotely warrants both a severance or a change within the joint trial date,” Rakoff wrote.
Attorneys for the Epstein sufferer suing JPMorgan had additionally argued for the circumstances to be separated. They mentioned the financial institution’s countersuit in opposition to Staley was designed to “harass and intimidate” her, as her personal medical data and intimate communications would now be shared with one among her alleged abusers.
The choose mentioned the “correct method” to resolve such issues was to maintain the proof gathered by attorneys confidential, as JPMorgan had already agreed.
A lawyer for the alleged Epstein sufferer didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
A lawyer for Staley declined to remark. The previous banker, who left JPMorgan in 2013, is about to be questioned below oath by the financial institution’s attorneys later this month.
Rakoff did agree to increase a pre-trial procedural deadline by seven weeks after Staley’s lawyer had argued that his consumer would want extra time to evaluate tens of 1000’s of paperwork associated to the case.
Monday’s choices by the choose got here after Staley broke his silence final week to say, by way of his lawyer, that the allegations in opposition to him have been “baseless, however severe” and to accuse JPMorgan of slandering him.
After JPMorgan and a stint at a hedge fund, Staley grew to become chief government of the British financial institution Barclays in 2015. He resigned after six years following a regulatory investigation within the UK into the best way he characterised his relationship with Epstein.
Individually on Monday, in a response to the criticism in opposition to the financial institution by the alleged Epstein sufferer, JPMorgan denied that longstanding chief government Jamie Dimon knew of Staley’s “private involvement” with Epstein.
Within the new submitting, the financial institution additionally denied that Dimon knew Epstein had been arrested for solicitation in Florida in 2006 or subsequently registered as a intercourse offender within the state. Dimon is about to be deposed in Might.
