Girls sue Deutsche Financial institution, JPMorgan over Epstein ties By Reuters

(Reuters) – Girls who’ve accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse filed lawsuits in opposition to Deutsche Financial institution AG (NYSE:) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:) on Thursday, alleging the banks financially benefited from the late financier’s alleged intercourse trafficking operations.

The ladies, who weren’t recognized within the courtroom filings, cite U.S. federal anti-sex trafficking legal guidelines and are in search of class motion standing, in response to two separate lawsuits filed within the U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of New York.

“We imagine this declare lacks advantage and can current our arguments in courtroom,” Deutsche Financial institution (ETR:) mentioned in a press release.

Representatives for JPMorgan declined to touch upon the lawsuit, first reported by the Wall Avenue Journal.

Epstein killed himself in his cell on the Metropolitan Correctional Middle on Aug. 10, 2019, whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking expenses. His longtime affiliate, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was sentenced to twenty years in jail for serving to to recruit and groom underage ladies over the course of at the least a decade, submitting an enchantment in July.

Within the lawsuits filed Thursday, the plaintiffs accuse the banks of “offering the requisite monetary assist for the continued operation of Epstein’s worldwide intercourse trafficking group” in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a U.S. regulation used to focus on unlawful conspiracies that initially was designed to focus on organized crime.

“Epstein’s sex-trafficking enterprise was not attainable with out the help and complicity of a monetary establishment—particularly, a banking establishment—which supplied his operation with an look of legitimacy and particular therapy to the sex-trafficking enterprise, thereby guaranteeing its continued operation and sexual abuse and sex-trafficking of younger ladies and ladies,” attorneys for the nameless plaintiff wrote within the Deutsche Financial institution lawsuit.

The filings come as New York on Thursday opened up a one-year interval permitting grownup intercourse abuse victims to file instances that beforehand would have been too outdated to be thought-about in courtroom.

In June, a federal courtroom in Manhattan individually dominated Deutsche Financial institution should face a separate lawsuit from a shareholder who alleged the financial institution hid its actions whereas conducting enterprise with dangerous rich shoppers resembling Epstein.