Jeffrey Epstein started banking with Deutsche Bank in 2013 after JPMorgan Chase closed its accounts.
New York, United States:
Deutsche Bank will pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the German lender profited financially from supporting Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme, according to a report released Wednesday.
The settlement concerns an unnamed defendant who filed a proposed class action lawsuit in November 2022 alleging that Deutsche Bank was doing business with Epstein while knowing he was using money in the account to support sex trafficking, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday .
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said Deutsche Bank admitted no wrongdoing.
A Deutsche Bank spokesperson declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank profited financially by supporting the Epstein Sex Trafficking Organization in successfully raping, assaulting and coercively sexually assaulting Prosecutor Jane Doe 1 and the many other members of the Class, according to the original complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in New York.
Epstein, an American financier who committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex crimes, began banking with Deutsche Bank in 2013 after JPMorgan Chase closed its accounts, the Journal reported.
An unidentified woman — apparently the same as in the Deutsche case — and the U.S. Virgin Islands filed separate lawsuits against JPMorgan late last year, accusing the bank of facilitating Epstein’s crimes by ignoring warnings and declaring him as keep customer.
According to court documents, subpoenas in those cases targeted several high-profile people Epstein may have referred to JPMorgan as clients, including Elon Musk and Google co-founder Larry Page.
The bank has denied the allegations and has filed its own lawsuit against a former executive over his ties to Epstein.
Deutsche Bank in July 2020 agreed to pay $150 million to settle New York Department of Financial Services allegations of compliance errors related to the bank’s work for Epstein.
“We recognize our mistake in onboarding Epstein in 2013 and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learned from our mistakes and shortcomings,” Deutsche Bank said in July 2020.
Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of paying young girls for massages, but served just 13 months in prison under an undisclosed plea deal.
He was later charged with trafficking underage girls for sex and committed suicide in a New York prison in August 2019.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
