JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says Jeffrey Epstein could have been booted
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon looks on during the inauguration of the new French headquarters of US' JP Morgan bank on June 29, 2021 in Paris.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified last week that Mary Erdoes, a top executive at the bank who had concerns about sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, had the power to boot him as a long-time customer, according to a transcript of his deposition obtained by CNBC on Wednesday.
Dimon's testimony Friday came after disclosures by Erdoes in her own deposition that she as early as 2006 was aware of claims Epstein was accused of paying cash to have underage girls and young women brought to his him. Two lawsuits against the bank allege Epstein used money from his JPMorgan accounts for the sex trafficking of young women.
During his deposition, Dimon was shown an email that JPMorgan's then-general counsel Stephen Cutler Cutler sent Erdoes about Epstein on July 21, 2011.
In that email, Cutler wrote: "I would like to put it and him behind us. Not a person we should do business with, period."
"This is not an honorable person in any way," Cutler wrote in an email a day earlier to Erdoes, another top executive, Jes Staley, and two other bank executives, according to a lawyer who was questioning Dimon during the deposition. Staley was a friend of Epstein, and had made social visits to his homes in Manhattan and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
"He should not be a client," Cutler added in that email.
Dimon testified he was not aware of that email when it was sent.
Cutler, in his own deposition last week, "testified under oath that Jes Staley and Mary Erdoes made the decision to retain Epstein as a customer of the bank," a lawyer told Dimon.
Dimon testified Friday that, "Mr. Cutler had the ultimate authority to kick him out if he thought it had gone too far."
"He was delegating reputational decisions to somebody else" Dimon said, apparently referring to Cutler's claim that the decision to retain Epstein was made by Staley and Erdoes.
Source: CNBC
