WilmerHale’s Plan to Buy Blanket Immunity for JPMorgan for Banking Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking Ring Has Backfired Badly

 

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WilmerHale’s Plan to Buy Blanket Immunity for JPMorgan for Banking Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking Ring Has Backfired Badly

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 9, 2023 ~

WilmerHale Law Partner, Felicia Ellsworth

On October 20 we reported that JPMorgan Chase, a serial recidivist when it comes to crime, had paid $1.085 billion in legal expenses in just the last six months. A nice chunk of that money went to the Big Law firm, WilmerHale, which has been representing JPMorgan Chase this year in multiple lawsuits involving the bank’s dark history of financial dealings with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (See Related Articles at the bottom of this article.)

When the largest bank in the United States pays big bucks to a law firm with a roster of 1,000 attorneys, it doesn’t expect its $290 million class action settlement with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to blow up in its face just days before the final Fairness Hearing – a legally required court event to determine if the terms of the agreement are “fair, adequate and reasonable.”

That Fairness Hearing will be conducted today in Judge Jed Rakoff’s courtroom in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan at 4 p.m. It’s a big embarrassment for both WilmerHale and JPMorgan Chase that 16 state Attorneys General and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia are objecting to the terms of the settlement, along with two Epstein claimants.

Judge Rakoff had given the lawyers that hatched the terms of the settlement until November 6 to file their responses to the Attorneys General challenges. The lawyers included WilmerHale representing JPMorgan Chase and high-profile attorney, David Boies (and others) representing the Epstein victims.

Boies brings a lot of baggage with him as a result of his prior representation of now convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein and the strong-arm tactics Boies employed on Weinstein’s behalf. (See Ronan Farrow’s blockbuster investigative report in The New Yorker, Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies.)

We had anticipated that WilmerHale might file a respectful response to the Attorneys General objections, perhaps agreeing to change the language in the settlement that the Attorneys General found improper. These are, after all, the highest law enforcement offices in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

We could not have been more wrong. The response from WilmerHale effectively blasted the Attorneys General for sticking their nose where it didn’t belong.

What the Attorneys General are challenging boils down to this: Under the federal law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), Attorneys General have the right to bring claims on behalf of sex trafficked victims. The language in the JPMorgan Chase settlement proposes to extinguish those rights. The State Attorneys General explained it as follows in their filing with the court:

“Section 1.25 [of the proposed settlement agreement] releases claims that could be brought to recover damages from the Released Defendant Parties on behalf of a Member of the Class by any other party, including any sovereign or government, relating to or arising from any Member of the Class’s harm, injury, abuse, exploitation, or trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein or by any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof. (Emphasis added.)”

WilmerHale and David Boies’ settlement agreement hoped to pay Boies and his fellow lawyers working on behalf of the victims $87 million in legal fees; $2.5 million in legal expenses; and buy blanket immunity going forward for all those JPMorgan executives and the bank’s ultra wealthy clients who were regular visitors to Epstein’s mansions/brothels; as well as the bank’s employees who were funneling $40,000 to $80,000 in hard cash each month to Epstein for over a decade while the bank failed to file the legally-mandated Suspicious Activity Reports.

It’s a sweet deal for lawyers and a sweet deal for a recidivist money laundering bank. (See JPMorgan/Jeffrey Epstein Cases Are a Cross Between the Bank’s Chinese Princeling Scandal and Madoff Fraud, Using Sex with Minors as a Bribe.) But it’s a very bad deal for the public interest.

The lawyer who drafted and signed WilmerHale’s response to the objections of the state Attorneys General was law partner, Felicia Ellsworth, the Vice Chair of WilmerHale’s Litigation/Controversy Department. Ellsworth goes for the jugular with this in her response:

“Standing between the victims and this compensation are the Attorneys General of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont. These Attorneys General have no stake in this matter: they do not articulate any reason why the settlement would harm their states or their citizens. Just the opposite, their objection undermines the settlement and the victims they claim to support.

“First, there is no procedural mechanism for the Attorneys General—who are neither parties to the case, nor members of the certified class—to object to the proposed settlement.

“Second, the Attorneys General identify no legal or equitable flaw in the proposed settlement, whether to their respective States or to their citizens. With no stake in this case, the Court should decline the Attorneys General’s invitation to issue an advisory opinion.”

In reality, the challenge from the Attorneys General very specifically identified the legal flaw in the settlement and cited to numerous examples of case law that backed up their arguments. In one section, they explained to the court as follows:

“In adding Section 1595(d) to the civil remedy section of the TVPA, which previously only explicitly recognized victim suits, Congress intended to ‘unleash’ the power of state law enforcement to prosecute these heinous sex-trafficking crimes, recognizing that, in many circumstances, victims are unable or unwilling to come forward and ‘more prosecutors,’ ‘more investigators,’ and ‘more resources’ are needed to ‘address this growing problem throughout our country.’…‘This amendment is needed in order to give enhanced powers to State attorneys general that they can provide the extra litigation leverage for individuals who are impacted in a devastating manner.’…If broad releases of non-party state Attorneys General law enforcement actions under the TVPA seeking victim-specific relief were deemed permissible without their express consent, state Attorneys General may be deterred from bringing these important civil law enforcement actions in the future – upsetting Congress’ very purpose in amending the TVPA to add state law enforcement.”

Related Articles:

New Court Documents Suggest the Justice Department Under Four Presidents Covered Up Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Laundering at JPMorgan Chase

Former FBI Agent Prepared to Testify that JPMorgan Had Jeffrey Epstein Account for 28 Years – Not 15 Years – and “Impeded” Criminal Investigation of Epstein

JPMorgan Listed a “Lolita’s Closet” on the New York Stock Exchange for Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Man, Les Wexner

Gary Gensler’s SEC Is Drawing a Dark Curtain Around Child Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, His Money Man Leslie Wexner and Their Ties to JPMorgan

JPMorgan Had a Secret Project that Is Now Spreading Its Scandalous Internal Emails with Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to News Outlets Worldwide

JPMorgan Is Alleged to Have Used Its Hedge Fund’s Private Jet to Engage in Sex-Trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein

JPMorgan Chase and Jeffrey Epstein Were Both Involved in a Strange Offshore Company Called Liquid Funding

The Company Under Scrutiny in the Jeffrey Epstein Case Has Semi-Nude Young Females on its Board of Directors’ Page

Jamie Dimon’s Deposition in Epstein Case Reveals Email Stating that Dimon Was to Be Treated to “Heavy Snacks” at Epstein’s Home

The Justice Department Has Had the Epstein Case Since July 2006 – It’s Time to Arrest Accomplices

JPMorgan Chase Paid $1.085 Billion in Legal Expenses in Last Six Months; It’s Still Battling Hundreds of Charges and Legal Proceedings on Three Continents

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JPMorgan Chase Paid $1.085 Billion in Legal Expenses in Last Six Months; It’s Still Battling Hundreds of Charges and Legal Proceedings on Three Continents

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 20, 2023 ~

At some point, federal regulators, the Senate Banking Committee and the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice are going to reach the same conclusion that Wall Street On Parade reached quite some time ago: JPMorgan Chase is a criminal enterprise in drag as a federally-insured bank.

JPMorgan Chase is the largest U.S. bank, with $3.9 trillion in assets and 4,863 Chase Bank branches sucking in mom and pop deposits across the United States. According to its regulators, it is also the riskiest bank in the United States. And, two trial lawyers have written a fact-intensive book describing how the bank resembles the Gambino crime family. The bank’s admission to five criminal felony counts since 2015 and spiraling rap sheet would seem to back up that theory.

Now comes the latest revelation in the bank’s own 8K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday. Somehow, in just two quarters – the span of a meager six months – this one bank has managed to spend a stunning $1.085 billion on legal expenses. The bank spent $665 million on legal expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2023 and $420 million for the three months ended June 30, 2023. (See footnote (a) on page 4 of JPMorgan Chase’s October 13 SEC filing at this link.)

Reading deeper into its most recent 8K filing strongly hints that this bank is not only a serial criminal enterprise but it is also a full employment program for Big Law.

Throughout this year, Big Law firm WilmerHale has been racking up a lot of billable hours defending JPMorgan Chase from highly credible charges brought by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands in a federal lawsuit that the bank “actively participated” in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors by serving as his cash conduit for more than 15 years. While the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands filed extremely heavy evidence with the court to back up her charges, WilmerHale pursued a scorched earth legal strategy of smearing officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands that brought them to a cheap settlement of $75 million in September.

WilmerHale also represented JPMorgan Chase this year in a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Given that 15 JPMorgan Chase employees had visited Epstein at his Manhattan mansion where Epstein’s sex slaves were in abundance and their testimony at trial might have added new scandals to the bank, JPMorgan also settled that case for the generous sum of $290 million in June. (Plaintiffs lawyers were to get $87 million of the $290 million.)

WilmerHale also opened up another billing track (and damage control track) by suing one of JPMorgan’s former officials, Jes Staley, attempting to load the blame for the bank’s sleazy dealings with Epstein (a registered sex offender and well-documented sex trafficker of minors) onto Staley’s shoulders. That narrative pretty much fell apart when a former FBI official, hired by opposing counsel as an expert witness, introduced court documents showing that different bank employees had funneled more than $5 million in hard cash to Epstein over a decade, sometimes as much as $40,000 to $80,000 a month, without filing the legally required Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

The Staley case was abruptly settled in September for an undisclosed sum of money.

JPMorgan Chase also paid more legal fees this year to the Big Law firm Paul Weiss to get a very problematic case dismissed in federal court. That case named the Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, as a defendant, along with specific members of its Board of Directors. The thrust of the case was that the same members of JPMorgan’s Board of Directors who brought Jamie Dimon to the top leadership position at the bank, were also, verifiably, engaged in business dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. Before that case could be fleshed out for the public with depositions and discovery, Judge Jed Rakoff very conveniently dismissed it. (See Rakoff’s background with Paul Weiss here.)

Big Law firm Sullivan & Cromwell got a nice feather in its cap under former President Donald Trump (now indicted on 91 felony charges himself) by sending its law partner, Jay Clayton, to be the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (notwithstanding the fact that Clayton had represented 8 of the 10 largest Wall Street banks prior to becoming their “watchdog”). One of its clients was JPMorgan Chase. This year Sullivan & Cromwell brags on its website that it scored a big win “for JPMorgan Chase and the trillion-dollar syndicated loan industry, with the Second Circuit ruling that interests in a syndicated loan were not securities under federal securities laws.” One can’t be sued for securities fraud if the instrument in question is not defined as a “security.”

Big Law firm Covington & Burling, whose revolving door sent law partner Eric Holder to be the head of the U.S. Department of Justice under President Obama, along with its law partner Lanny Breuer to head the DOJ’s criminal division under Holder, represented JPMorgan Chase this year in resolving a federal lawsuit for $499 million among a group of banks over charges that they conspired to stifle competition in the stock lending business.

JPMorgan Chase discloses in its current 8K filing with the SEC that it is not just battling charges here in the U.S. It reports that it is under investigation by the Swiss Competition Commission relating to EURIBOR, the benchmark short-term lending rate in Europe. JPMorgan Chase also advises that “In December 2016, the European Commission issued a decision against the Firm and other banks finding an infringement of European antitrust rules relating to EURIBOR. The Firm has filed an appeal of that decision with the European General Court, and that appeal is pending.”

JPMorgan Chase is also under criminal investigation on the continent of Asia. It reports as follows in its 8K:

“India’s Enforcement Directorate (‘ED’) is investigating J.P. Morgan India Private Limited in connection with investments made in 2010 and 2012 by two offshore funds formerly managed by JPMorgan Chase entities into residential housing projects developed by the Amrapali Group (‘Amrapali’). In 2017, numerous creditors filed civil claims against Amrapali, including petitions brought by home buyers relating to delays in delivering or failure to deliver residential units. The home buyers’ petitions have been overseen by the Supreme Court of India and are ongoing. In August 2021, the ED issued an order fining J.P. Morgan India Private Limited approximately $31.5 million. The Firm is appealing the order and the fine. Relatedly, in July 2019, the Supreme Court of India issued an order making preliminary findings that Amrapali and other parties, including unspecified JPMorgan Chase entities and the offshore funds that had invested in the projects, violated certain currency control and money laundering provisions, and ordering the ED to conduct a further inquiry under India’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act (‘PMLA’) and Foreign Exchange Management Act (‘FEMA’). In May 2020, the ED attached approximately $25 million from J.P. Morgan India Private Limited in connection with the criminal PMLA investigation. The Firm is responding to and cooperating with the PMLA investigation.”

Adding to JPMorgan’s legal tab this year, not to mention its humiliation, a Judge in May ruled that the bank has to pay the legal bills for Charlie Javice, the 31-year old woman that scammed the bank (which has the biggest law firms in the world on retainer), to buy her allegedly fraudulently trumped up company. Those legal bills could turn out to be quite hefty. Javice is facing a civil lawsuit filed by JPMorgan Chase as well as criminal charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The cases we have cited here are just the tip of the iceberg. The bank indicated in a recent SEC filing that it is involved in “several hundred” legal proceedings.

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/10/jpmorgan-chase-paid-1-085-billion-in-legal-expenses-in-last-six-months-its-still-battling-hundreds-of-charges-and-legal-proceedings-on-three-continents/