Deutsche Bank will pay $113 million to victims of Jeffrey Epstein

Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $US75 million ($113 million) to sexual abuse victims of Jeffrey Epstein to settle a lawsuit filed last year in New York City, according to the lawyers for the victims.

The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge, would resolve a proposed class-action suit that alleged the bank had helped enable the disgraced financier’s sex trafficking of young women by missing warning signs in Epstein’s accounts that he was engaged in wrongdoing.

Deutsche Bank took Epstein on as a client after JPMorgan Chase, which had been his primary bank for roughly 15 years, stopped doing business with him.

Jeffrey Epstein in a court appearance in 2008.Credit: AP

Dylan Riddle, a spokesperson for the German bank, declined to comment on any proposed settlement. But in a statement, Riddle said the bank “has made considerable progress in remedying a number of past issues,” while investing in bolstering its internal controls.

David Boies and Brad Edwards, the lawyers for the women who brought the case, said $US75 million would be made available to the more than 125 victims of Epstein who previously obtained payouts from a restitution fund established by his estate after his death in 2019.

Boies and Edwards, who work at separate firms, said in a joint statement: “This groundbreaking settlement is the culmination of two law firms conducting more than a decade-long investigation to hold one of Epstein’s financial banking partners responsible for the role it played in facilitating his trafficking organisation.”

News of the settlement was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Epstein’s estate established the restitution fund several months after he died by suicide while he was in federal custody awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The fund has paid out more than $US125 million to his victims — many of whom were teenage girls when they were abused by Epstein. In addition, the estate has paid about $US20 million in settlements to other victims who did not seek awards from the restitution fund.

The tentative settlement closes another chapter in Deutsche Bank’s relationship with Epstein, which began in 2013 and continued until late 2018.

In 2020, Deutsche Bank, which is based in Frankfurt, Germany, agreed to pay $US150 million to New York regulators to settle claims that the bank repeatedly overlooked suspicious transactions involving Epstein and ignored obvious red flags about his activities.

The lawyers for the victims have also sued JPMorgan, claiming it too ignored warning signs about Epstein and benefited financially from his sex-trafficking operation.

The government of the US Virgin Islands, the territory where Epstein operated his businesses for nearly two decades, has sued JPMorgan. Last year Epstein’s estate agreed to pay $US105 million to the Virgin Islands to settle a lawsuit brought by the government to recover tax benefits it had awarded to one of Epstein’s businesses in St Thomas.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to a charge of soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl and was ordered to register as a sex offender.

But the guilty plea did not stop the rich and famous — including a number of wealthy men — from continuing to socialise with him at his Manhattan town house and his other residences.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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