A Manhattan federal judge has ruled in favour of the US Virgin Islands’ request to subpoena Google co-founder Larry Page amid civil proceedings stemming from JPMorgan Chase’s alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.
In a lawsuit filed in December, the USVI claimed that JP Morgan facilitated Epstein’s sex trafficking ring by handling his payments to recruiters and victims. Prosecutors said JPMorgan serviced approximately 55 Epstein accounts between 1998 and 2013 – years after the paedophile was first arrested in Florida for soliciting minors.
According to court filings on Thursday (4 May) that have been reviewed by The Independent, prosecutors believe Epstein “may have referred or attempted to refer” Mr Page, who stepped down as CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet in 2019, to JPMorgan. The USVI government alleged it has fruitlessly attempted to serve Mr Page’s subpoena via traditional means since April after hiring an investigative firm to locate the billionaire, but all addresses listed for him “were invalid.”
Prosecutors filed a motion for Judge Jed Rakoff to facilitate alternative service with a subpoena for Mr Page to produce unspecified documents, which was granted on Friday (5 May). The ruling comes just weeks before JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is set to be deposed later this month.
Mr Page must now produce any communication between him and Epstein regarding JPMorgan that dates back to 2002. He has also been asked to disclose potential fees paid by him to Epstein and vice versa, in connection with his accounts at JPMorgan, as well as “all documents reflecting or regarding Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking and/or his procurement of girls or women for commercial sex.”
The Independent has reached out to Mr Page for comment.
USVI prosecutors have previously subpoenaed JPMorgan’s former chief executive Jes Staley, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and former Disney executive Michael Ovitz, among other powerful figures. The territory claims that JPMorgan was complicit in Epstein’s crimes given “the business opportunities referred to [it] by Epstein and his co-conspirators in exchange for its known facilitation of and implicit participation in Epstein’s sex trafficking venture.”
Judge Rakoff allowed some claims to move forward in the lawsuit last week, including accusations by one of Epstein’s victims that Mr Staley allegedly raped her while Epstein was present, the New York Post reported. Mr Staley has previously denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex ring — The Independent has reached out to him with the new claims against him.
According to February filings, Mr Staley, then head of private banking at JPMorgan, exchanged more than 1,000 emails from his work account with Epstein between 2008 and 2012. The USVI argues that at least one of those exchanges pertained to Epstein procuring young women to Mr Staley while the latter was visiting London.
The Virgin Islands government alleges that the men used the names of Disney princesses as code for the women that Epstein trafficked — with Epstein also emailing Mr Staley “photos of young women in seductive poses.” In one of the emails, Epstein asked Mr Staley if he “needed anything” while in England’s capital, to which Mr Staley allegedly answered yes.
Mr Staley later responded “that was fun,” and, “Say hi to Snow White,” prosecutors said in the documents.
When Epstein asked, “[W]hat character would you like next?”, Mr Staley reportedly answered: “Beauty and the Beast.”
JPMorgan has denied having knowledge of any misconduct by Epstein and Mr Staley, who stepped down from the company in 2013. The bank has also argued that it can’t be held liable for Mr Staley’s alleged awareness of Epstein’s crimes.
When reached out by The Independent earlier this year, the bank referred to its legal filing on 1 February.
“ ... USVI had access at the time to the same information, allegations, and rumors about Epstein on which it alleges JPMC should have acted,” the statement read. “Indeed, as a law-enforcement agency, USVI had access to much more, along with the investigative advantage of physical proximity to Epstein’s crimes.”
According to an extensive report from The Wall Street Journal published last week, the circle of global power players who continued to meet with Epstein after his first sex conviction was far wider than previously revealed.
Using source documents including Epstein’s schedules, the paper identified meetings between the disgraced financier and figures including the current director of the CIA, a former White House lawyer, a college president and a member of an international banking dynasty following his 2008 conviction for a sex crime involving a teenage girl. However, none of those names appeared to be in Epstein’s Little St James’ “black book.”
Epstein, who once counted the likes of Prince Andrew and Bill Gates among his friends and associates, was found dead in a jail cell in 2019 while he was awaiting charges of sex-trafficking, allegations he denied. He had earlier served a year in jail after a plea deal in Florida over sex offences.
His partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and conspiracy for helping him procure girls, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
