2LT International News

NEW YORK CITY, New York: Two of America’s biggest banks, Bank of America and BNY Mellon, are facing fresh lawsuits over their alleged financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender accused of running a global sex trafficking ring for years.

A woman identified only as Jane Doe filed the suits in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, accusing the banks of knowingly enabling Epstein’s criminal enterprise by providing financial services that allowed his operation to flourish.

Bank of America and BNY Mellon declined to comment.

Doe is seeking unspecified damages. She is represented by the law firms Boies Schiller Flexner and Edwards Henderson, which previously secured major settlements over similar allegations, $75 million with Deutsche Bank and $290 million with JPMorgan Chase. Both of those banks denied wrongdoing when they settled.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death, coupled with his extensive ties to influential figures in business and politics, has fueled speculation and controversy for years.

The lawsuits come as Congress reopens investigations into Epstein’s network. The House Oversight Committee is examining how Epstein evaded law enforcement for so long and whether institutions turned a blind eye to his activities.

“As Congress works toward unraveling how Jeffrey Epstein was able to orchestrate his criminal sex trafficking enterprise for decades without detection, we are taking another important step forward toward justice for survivors,” said Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for Jane Doe.

According to the complaints, Doe met Epstein in 2011 while living in Russia. She said she became financially dependent on him and was raped, assaulted, and coerced into sexual acts with other women at least 100 times between 2011 and 2019.

Doe alleges that she opened a Bank of America account in 2013 at the direction of Epstein’s longtime accountant Richard Kahn, who used the account to send her rent money. In 2015, she said, Kahn’s assistant informed her that Epstein was placing her on the payroll of a “sham company” and that she would receive regular payments through the account — transactions her lawyers say should have raised red flags for the bank.

The suit against BNY Mellon claims the bank extended a line of credit to MC2, a modeling agency allegedly used by Epstein and French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel to traffic victims. It says BNY processed $378 million in payments to women trafficked by Epstein.

Brunel was arrested in France in 2020 and was later found dead in jail in 2022.

Both suits accuse the banks of failing to file Suspicious Activity Reports with the U.S. Treasury Department, actions that could have alerted authorities and potentially curtailed Epstein’s network years earlier.