Epstein victims get $72.5M from Bank of America settlement

Bank of America has agreed to pay victims of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein $72.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the bank facilitated his sex trafficking operation, a New York federal court filing showed Friday evening.

The settlement, in which BoA did not admit wrongdoing, is the fourth settlement by a major bank of legal claims by Epstein victims or a government entity alleging they effectively abetted his trafficking while he was a customer. The settlement with BoA has to be approved by a judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where the suit was filed.

“While we stand by our prior ​statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate ⁠sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs,” ​a spokesperson for Bank of America said in a statement sent to CNBC.

The settlement would pay “all women who were sexually abused or trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, or by any person who is connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein or any Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking venture, between June 30, 2008 and July 6, 2019, inclusive,” according to the filing on Friday.

Deutsche Bank, however, at the time of its settlement, said, “We acknowledge our error onboarding Epstein in 2013, and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and our shortcomings.”

Those three prior lawsuits, like the current one against BoA, were filed in Manhattan federal court.

The lead plaintiff in the Bank of America case, who filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe, is a native of Russia who met Epstein in 2011.

The complaint against BoA said that from that year, through 2019, “Epstein sexually abused Jane Doe on at least 100 occasions, including but not limited to, forcibly touching her, forcibly raping her, and forcing her to engage in sexual acts with other women for his own depraved sexual gratification.”

The suit says that in May 2013, Jane Doe opened a bank account at Bank of America at the direction of Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn and an immigration attorney as part of a plan to defraud immigration officials.

“At the heart of the Amended Complaint, Lead Plaintiff alleges that Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking venture was facilitated and enabled by [Bank of America] helping Epstein avoid regulators’ scrutiny and providing Epstein with withdrawal and wire services, all so Defendant could profit from Epstein and his associates,” the filing about the settlement says.

“Lead Plaintiff further alleges that Defendant’s assistance to Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise prevented the authorities from discovering his illegal scheme and increased the size and scale of Epstein’s access to and control of victims, causing damage to members of the Class,” the filing said.

The bank “has expressly denied, and continues to deny, that it participated in or otherwise assisted, supported, or facilitated the Epstein sex-trafficking venture in any way or that it engaged in obstruction.”

Epstein, 66, killed himself in a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019, weeks after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.

He previously had pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution in Florida state court in 2008, and ended up serving 13 months in jail.