Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the bank played a key role in facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring.
An unnamed “Jane Doe” plaintiff in court documents filed the suit in New York in November on behalf of herself and other alleged victims of the convicted sex offender, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Doe plaintiff alleged that Deutsche Bank did business with Epstein for five years, knowing that he was using his funds to support his abusive regime of girls and young women.
The suit said that Deutsche “provided the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization to successfully rape, sexually assault and coercively sex traffic plaintiff Jane Doe” between 2003 and 2016.
She claimed to be trafficked to Epstein’s friends as well, lured by Epstein’s “guise of being a wealthy philanthropist, able to provide them … cash money, advancement of careers, education or other life necessities.”
The suit alleged that Deutsche Bank ignored red flags, including allowing Epstein “to open many accounts for illegitimate companies,” approving his money transfers “without questioning” and giving him “direct access to abundant cash in direct violation of federal law.”
The court documents suggested that these money transfers and cash withdrawals had to do with Epstein’s payments to young women for sex acts.
The $75 million settlement is expected to be distributed among dozens of accusers, according to The Journal.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the settlement.
However, a source familiar with the situation pointed The Post to a statement the bank released in 2022, acknowledging the bank’s mistakes and lapses in controls during Epstein’s time as a client, though the bank didn’t admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
The source also said that in recent years, Deutsche Bank has invested 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in expanding the German bank’s anti-financial crime team.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers, from firms Boies Schiller and Edwards Pottinger, told The Journal that they believe the $75 million to be one of the largest sex-trafficking settlements involving a banking institution.
Epstein became a Deutsche Bank client in 2018 after JPMorgan Chase cut ties with the disgraced financier.
A similar lawsuit has also been filed by the US Virgin Islands against JPMorgan, claiming the bank failed to report Epstein’s suspicious activity and allowed him to funnel money to various shell companies that funded his illicit activities, which primarily took place at his residence on Little St. James in the Virgin Islands.
Many other “high-net worth individuals” have since been issued a subpoena — including billionaire Elon Musk and Google co-founder Larry Page — over claims that Epstein referred them to JPMorgan.
Epstein reportedly continued to work with both JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank years after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in a Florida state court in 2008.
The convicted sex offender was arrested in 2019 and died by suicide in a New York federal jail while awaiting trial.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
