Lawsuit alleges top banker with Epstein ties may be linked to sex trafficking, ... trends now

When Jeffrey Epstein served his first prison term for sexually abusing young girls, he had many privileges. The most valuable of them was the right to spend 12 hours a day, six days a week for much of his 13-month sentence outside Florida's Palm Beach County jail on 'work release'.

He arranged to be chauffeured each day to the well-appointed 14th-floor offices of his charity, the Florida Science Foundation. It was not only far more cushy than a prison cell but allowed him to avoid prison inmates who tend to take a dim view of child abusers.

Even though he had been convicted of just two offences relating to a single charge of procuring a child for prostitution, it had been widely publicised that at least half a dozen girls aged 14 to 16 had told police he had paid them for 'erotic massages' and sex. If this disgusted his fellow convicted felons, it didn't stop Wall Street banker Jes Staley, who flew down from New York to visit Epstein at his office.

Staley ran the private banking division of JPMorgan Chase — the biggest bank in the U.S. — and it was his job to keep high- net-worth clients, such as Epstein, happy.

Staley, now 66, who would go on to become chief executive of Barclays and one of the most important bankers in the UK, has been described as 'genial', and he and his Brazilian heiress wife, Debora, are generous philanthropists. Perhaps it was that charitable spirit that prompted him to visit a jailed paedophile in his hour of adversity and impelled him later to drop in at Epstein's private Caribbean island on his yacht.

But maybe there was more to it than that. Allegations in two bombshell new lawsuits filed in New York include claims that Staley was not only a close friend of Epstein, but watched him sexually abuse young women, and was complicit — and possibly even involved — in his sex trafficking.

Staley's lawyer has declined to comment on the allegations, but has previously said: 'We wish to make it expressly clear that our client had no involvement in any of the alleged crimes committed by Mr Epstein.'

First, the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands has claimed Staley had 'a profound friendship' with the disgraced money man and, judging by their endless email traffic, 'may have been involved in Epstein's sex-trafficking operation'.

The U.S. territory — where Epstein owned two islands, Great Saint James and Little Saint James — is suing JPMorgan, alleging that it 'facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions' that were part of Epstein's sex-trafficking scheme, a criminal enterprise to which it 'turned a blind eye' for more than a decade because of his financial value to the company.

This week, a second amended complaint against JPMorgan, this time from one of Epstein's alleged victims, piled further pressure on Staley, who was ousted ignominiously from Barclays in 2021 over their relationship.

This time, the accuser, identified only as Jane Doe 1, claims Staley 'personally observed' Epstein's sexual abuse of young women.

She also alleges Staley was 'one of Epstein's closest pals' and frequently visited his various properties, including the massage room of his Manhattan mansion, his estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands and a New York apartment building where Epstein would 'stash' his victims.

According to 'Jane Doe 1', Staley had been 'well aware' that Epstein was involved in sex trafficking and 'personally spent time with young girls whom he met through Epstein on several occasions'. The two men exchanged emails about 'sexual topics', she says.

He allegedly watched Epstein 'sexually grab young women in front of him' and benefited from their close relationship 'in the receipt of massages, private jet flights with victims or co-conspirators of the operation, and other things of value'.

The lawsuit claims that Epstein had 55 accounts with JPMorgan which contained the hundreds of millions of dollars he used to pay his victims and fund his degenerate billionaire lifestyle.

Mr Staley 'was the key to making all of Epstein's depraved dreams of sexual abuse and sex trafficking of countless young women possible', it says. Staley has always denied any knowledge of Epstein's abuse and has yet to comment on the latest accusations, which are by far the most serious he has faced.

JPMorgan also declined to comment. Staley's lawyer responded to the U.S. Virgin Islands lawsuit by saying: 'Mr Staley was not involved in sex trafficking.'

Staley used to describe his relationship with Epstein as 'professional', although that seemed patently ridiculous when it was revealed they had continued to see each other when they were no longer doing business. The stunning new claims will embarrass not only him but JPMorgan and Barclays, whose board accepted his assurances about Epstein.

And they also once more highlight the lingering debate over whether those who dealt with Epstein in business were ever, as they have strenuously claimed, entirely ignorant of his relentless abuse of girls. Why did a banker with a sterling reputation for making money, and who would later be credited with transforming Barclays' international reputation, apparently allow himself to become so enmeshed with the Machiavellian Epstein that he would still want to fraternise with him when he was doing time for child sex abuse?

Born in Boston in 1956, Staley joined JPMorgan after taking an economics degree. During the 1980s, he worked for the bank in Brazil where he met his future wife, Debora Nitzan. She was a 19-year-old student at the time but also heir to her family's multi-million-dollar data company, Aceco.

They moved to New York in the early 1990s, where Staley worked his way up the JPMorgan ladder. Epstein came into his orbit when Staley took over the bank's asset management division, handling its richest clients. They started to develop a relationship in 2000 after Staley — having been advised by a senior colleague to get to know Epstein — was reportedly introduced to him by a

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