JPMorgan Chase JPM.N agreed to pay $75 million to settle claims by the U.S. Virgin Islands that the bank aided in the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. Photo: Internet Source

The largest U.S. bank also reached a confidential settlement with Jes Staley, a former private banking chief who was close to Epstein and who JPMorgan blamed for keeping him as a client.

Both settlements were reached four weeks before a scheduled trial, largely resolving a scandal that has weighed on JPMorgan all year.

They conclude the final pieces of major litigation over Epstein’s sexual abuse of women, which has embroiled prominent people such as Britain’s Prince Andrew and powerful figures in business.

Lawsuits against JPMorgan also called into question the bank’s oversight of clients, with accusations it ignored red flags and internal warnings about Epstein, including over money he supposedly withdrew to pay young women and teenage girls.

Epstein had been a JPMorgan client from 1998 until 2013, when the New York-based bank fired him.

“The firm deeply regrets any association with this man, and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he was using the bank in any way to commit his heinous crimes,” JPMorgan said in a statement.

The U.S. Virgin Islands settlement calls for JPMorgan to pay $30 million to support charitable organizations, $25 million to combat human trafficking, and $20 million to the territory’s lawyers.

JPMorgan did not admit wrongdoing. It agreed in June to pay $290 million to resolve separate claims by dozens of Epstein’s accusers.

US Virgin Islands Attorney General Ariel Smith said the settlement was a “historic victory for survivors and for state enforcement, and it should sound the alarm on Wall Street about banks’ responsibilities under the law to detect and prevent human trafficking.”

Last November, the territory reached a separate settlement of at least $105 million with Epstein’s estate.

Lawyers for Staley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

JPMorgan had wanted him to cover its losses in its other two lawsuits, and forfeit eight years of pay.

Staley left JPMorgan in 2013, shortly before Epstein was fired, and later spent six years as Barclays’ BARC.L chief executive. He has expressed regret for his friendship with Epstein and denied knowing about his sex trafficking.

Epstein died in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. New York City’s medical examiner called his death a suicide.