Lawyers for Jes Staley can question the Jeffrey Epstein victim who said she was sexually assaulted by the former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive in her class action suit against the bank.
(Bloomberg) — Lawyers for Jes Staley can question the Jeffrey Epstein victim who said she was sexually assaulted by the former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive in her class action suit against the bank.
In an order made public on Wednesday, US District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York ruled that the deposition of the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, would take place in person this month in the city where she now lives. Doe had previously expressed fear of facing “intrusive” questioning and demands for evidence by Staley.
JPMorgan agreed to settle Doe’s suit for $290 million in June but is still suing Staley, its former private banking head, to hold him responsible for any costs it incurs over Epstein. According to the bank, Staley withheld information about his relationship with Epstein and acted to have JPMorgan retain the sex offender as a client.
Staley has denied the bank’s allegation, saying he was not responsible for Epstein’s accounts at the bank. He has also denied assaulting Doe, calling the claim “slanderous.”
Doe didn’t name Staley as a defendant in her suit, but she identified him as a key figure in the bank’s relationship with Epstein. Separately, she said in her suit that an unidentified “powerful financial executive” assaulted her in Epstein’s mansion. JPMorgan said in its suit against Staley that it believed he was the executive.
Read More: Epstein Victim Says JPMorgan Exploiting Staley Assault Claim
In an April court filing, Doe confirmed that Staley was the executive who allegedly assaulted her but accused JPMorgan of trying to intimidate her by identifying him and bringing him into the case.
A lawyer for Doe didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Doe’s case unearthed new details about Epstein’s relationships on Wall Street and led to the depositions of senior former and current bank executives, including Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. Doe alleged JPMorgan knowingly benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking while he was a client between the late 1990s and 2013.
The bank is also defending a similar lawsuit filed by the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein had a private island and trafficked young women.
Though neither of the suits against JPMorgan named Staley as a defendant, they both heavily focused on the banker’s relationship with Epstein. The USVI suit cited some of hundreds of emails the two exchanged over the years in claiming that the two had a “profound” friendship.
Read More: Epstein-Staley Emails Chronicle Friendship Forged at JPMorgan
Staley became chief executive of Barclays Plc but was forced to step down in 2021 after British financial regulators launched an investigation into his ties to Epstein.
The case is Jane Doe 1 v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, 22-cv-10019, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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