JPMorgan Chase & Co has accused the former first lady of the U.S. Virgin Islands of aiding Jeffrey Epstein in sex trafficking in a number of ways, including helping to arrange visas, jobs, and travel for some of his victims and helping him circumvent the territory’s sex-offender probation law.
According to the bank, Cecile de Jong, wife of former United States Governor John de Jong, was “Epstein’s main conduit for spreading money and influence throughout the USVI government.”
She ran Epstein’s USVI businesses, receiving $200,000 in damages in 2007 alone, and also paid tuition for her children, JPMorgan reports. She, in turn, “explicitly advised Epstein on how to purchase control of the USVI political class,” the bank said.
The bank made the allegations in court on Thursday filing This was a less revised version of the one I submitted earlier in the week. The motion was filed in opposition to a USVI request to prevent JPMorgan from defending “unclean hands” in the territory’s lawsuit accusing the bank of knowingly profiting from Epstein’s sex trade.
Read more: USVI seeks Epstein’s defense of Bar JPMorgan’s “unclean hands”.
According to JPMorgan’s attorneys, De Jongh helped obtain student visas for three young women associated with Epstein, and arranged for their enrollment at the University of the Virgin Islands. “Perhaps recognizing the danger of having a registered sex offender sign the letter,” the bank said, it offered to have another person sign letters for the women stating their ability to pay tuition.
And Epstein donated heavily to USVI politicians and to the government itself, according to the filing. This included $30,000 to the campaign of Representative Stacy Plaskett, a non-voting USVI delegate to Congress, a gift of $25,000 to incumbent Governor Albert Bryan’s inaugural committee and donations to a school library. De Jongh also suggested that Epstein put USVI senator Celestino White on “some kind of monthly retainer” to gain loyalty and access, the filings state.
De Jongh also acted as a conduit between Epstein and the USVI Port Authority, which operated the airport Epstein used.
“Based on his connections to the government, when traveling through a USVI airport accompanied by young women as registered sex offenders, Epstein could rely on his ‘substantial relationship’ with officials there to avoid scrutiny or detection,” the suit states. In 2010, Epstein emailed de Jong to complain about a “difficult” customs officer at the airport. Two years later, he asked if she could send all 78 customs officers’ turkeys for Thanksgiving.
‘Will it work for you?’
In 2011, De Jongh and Epstein also spoke about drafting a bill before the USVI Legislature to increase probation for sex offenders. Epstein was registered as a sex offender after he was convicted in 2008 in Florida of soliciting a minor to prostitution.
“This is the suggested language. Will it work for you?” De Jongh allegedly asked Epstein in an email about the draft. When the bill was later passed, she apologized to him for “how it went,” JPMorgan claims.
“However, all is not lost and we will discover something by coming up with a game plan to get around these obstacles,” she wrote, according to Bank. JPMorgan alleges that de Young “developed a plan to facilitate Epstein’s easy travel to and from the USVI” by working with specific politicians and officials in the territory.
The case is USVI v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, 22-cv-10904-UA, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).