by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade:
There are three shocking takeaways from the class action settlement documents that were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week in the Jeffrey Epstein victims’ case against Wall Street megabank, JPMorgan Chase. (See settlement documents linked at the end of this article.)
First, the attorneys for the unnamed victims are requesting $87 million in legal fees from the $290 million settlement amount, plus another $2.5 million in expenses. The victims, on the other hand, are guaranteed no minimum monetary payment but must file a release form before they learn if they will get a dime. This language appears in the settlement documents:
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“All Class Members shall be bound by all determinations and judgments in the Litigation concerning the Settlement (including, but not limited to, the releases provided for therein) whether favorable or unfavorable to the Class, regardless of whether such Persons seek or obtain by any means (including, without limitation, by submitting a Questionnaire and Release, or any similar document) any distribution from the Net Settlement Fund.”
The third shocking takeaway is that we could find no news story from mainstream media, which has heavily covered this story, that mentioned these and other egregious terms of the settlement.
JPMorgan was sued for facilitating Epstein’s child sex-trafficking for more than a decade by providing him with millions of dollars in hard cash from his accounts, sometimes as much as $40,000 to $80,000 a month, to pay off victims and enablers. The bank failed to file the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) that it is legally mandated to file with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Epstein’s quid pro quo with the bank included him referring valuable business deals and clients to JPMorgan Chase. These allegations were substantiated by 22 pages of internal bank emails released in a related case brought against the bank by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The law firms representing Epstein’s victims – Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and Edwards Henderson Lehrman (EHL) – filed the lawsuit on November 24, 2022. The terms of the $290 million settlement were filed on June 22 of last week. The proposed $89.5 million payday for these attorneys for seven months work comes to approximately $426,000 a day, including weekends.
The Boies and EHL law firms did bring extensive intellectual capital to the case. Attorneys at both firms have been representing Epstein victims for years. But the large sums of money they will collect under the settlement, the releases from any liability they have included in the settlement for themselves and JPMorgan’s attorneys, together with the lack of protections for the victims, should have raised red flags among the multitude of journalists who covered this story.
In addition to having to first sign a release form in order to file a claim for a monetary award with the Claims Administrator (who is also released from liability), Epstein’s victims will have to officially opt-out of this settlement in writing or be “forever” bound by its terms. Even if the victims never hear about this settlement or never receive a notice about the terms of this settlement, if they don’t opt-out in writing, they are bound by the terms of the settlement – meaning that they can’t assert their claims individually against JPMorgan Chase, its executives or personnel that covered up for Epstein, in a lawsuit of their own. The relevant section of the settlement reads:
“No Class Member is relieved from the terms of the Settlement, including the Releases provided for therein, based upon the contention or proof that such Class Member failed to receive actual or adequate notice.”
The claims that victims are releasing are sweeping in scope. The settlement includes this problematic language in one part of the release:
“This release is intended to release, to the maximum extent allowable under law, any claims, rights and causes of action against Released Defendant Parties of every nature and description…including both known and Unknown Claims…whether arising under federal law, state law, statutory law, common law, foreign law, or any other law, rule, or regulation, that could be brought to recover damages from the Released Defendant Parties on behalf of a Member of the Class by any other party, including any sovereign or government, relating to or arising from any Member of the Class’s harm, injury, abuse, exploitation, or trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein or by any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof.”
By purporting to extinguish damages recoverable by “any sovereign or government,” attorneys for plaintiffs and JPMorgan appear to be attempting to undercut the related case being pursued in the same court by the U.S. Virgin Islands’ Attorney General. JPMorgan has been in a legal war with the Virgin Islands over its Epstein charges against the bank and has vowed not to settle. JPMorgan has attempted to undermine the Virgin Islands’ case by smearing the reputation of the Virgin Islands. The bank has released emails and documents revealing compromised politicians in the Virgin Islands or their family members who provided favors to Epstein.
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