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Jes Staley told US lawmakers he did not connect Jeffrey Epstein’s large cash withdrawals from his JPMorgan Chase account with his sex offences, saying it was “incredible” to him that the financier continued to abuse minors after he was released from prison.
“You know, you can go to jail for . . . a year and you’ve been convicted of abusing minors, it’s just incredible to me that he would continue to do it after he got out of jail,” Staley told lawmakers, according to a transcript released by the US House committee on Wednesday.
Staley, a senior former JPMorgan executive who later went on to become chief executive of Barclays, appeared in front of members of Congress in late July to answer questions about his ties to Epstein in a voluntary closed-door interview.
During his questioning, Staley admitted that he had personally argued for JPMorgan to keep Epstein’s accounts after he began serving his sentence for soliciting underage sex in 2008.
The bank had removed almost all other banking relationships with Epstein and “it seemed to me, closing a checking account is a tough move”, he told lawmakers.
Staley said he was unaware the accounts were used to facilitate sex trafficking by Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial.
Epstein routinely withdrew tens of thousands of dollars in cash from the account, sums that would ultimately amount to $5mn, raising red flags within JPMorgan even before his first conviction.
The questioning covered familiar ground, including the now infamous emails in which the two men discuss Disney princesses Snow White and Beauty from Beauty and the Beast. Staley again said he did not recall what the emails were about, though later said he may have come across a young woman in a Snow White costume.
“I may have seen her in apartment and prompted that email. But I was not with a person dressed as Snow White outside of potentially crossing at his apartment,” he told lawmakers.
Melanie Stansbury, a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico, highlighted inconsistencies in what Staley was able to recall.
“You’re claiming that you can remember this interaction you had with Mr Epstein when you went and made a friendly visit while he was doing his sentence, but you have no recollection of these emails and exchanges you had over a woman that was referenced as ‘Snow White’ years later?” she asked him. “That’s ridiculous,” she said.
Staley said many of the exchanges scrutinised by the committee happened a long time ago and he was not able to recall many of the details.
Staley has maintained that he had a “close professional relationship” with Epstein, a characterisation that came under scrutiny in his failed bid to overturn a lifetime ban from working in financial services imposed on him by UK regulators during a two-week trial in London last year.
Thousands of emails showed the two men referring to each other as “family” and Staley seeking advice from Epstein on matters ranging from his salary at JPMorgan to his career prospects and sensitive decisions at the bank, as well as his daughter’s education.
Asked by lawmakers why Staley had chosen to remain friends with Epstein even after his 2008 conviction, the former Barclays boss said: “It’s inconceivable to me that he would have continued, and I thought he had paid his fine. He had gone to jail. My expectation was he would have reformed himself.”
“And so I maintained the relationship because he had done a number of viable things to me in my career,” he added.
JPMorgan declined to comment. A lawyer for Staley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
