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The top prosecutor in the US Virgin Islands has been fired less than a week after she filed a lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase of ignoring Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking operation.
Attorney General Denise George filed the lawsuit in Manhattan on Dec 27 alleging that the New York-headquartered financial services giant "provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims" of the late Epstein were paid.
On Sunday, Virgin Islands Governor Albert Bryan confirmed that George had been removed from the office amid reports he had been unaware of the lawsuit.
"I relieved Denise George of her duties as attorney general this weekend," Bryan said in a statement to media outlets, first published by The Virgin Islands Consortium. "Assistant Attorney General Carol Thomas-Jacobs will serve as Acting Attorney General."
The website reported that people familiar with the situation said Bryan "had been frustrated" with George for some time and that her action against the bank was "the final straw".
"I thank her for her service to the people of the territory during the past four years as attorney general and wish her the best in her future endeavors," the governor said.
The US Virgin Islands consist of the neighboring islands of St John and St Thomas, and St Croix to the south, and 50 other surrounding minor islands and cays. They are located in the Caribbean east of Puerto Rico.
In the lawsuit filed against JPMorgan Chase, George alleged that: "JP Morgan turned a blind eye to evidence of human trafficking over more than a decade because of Epstein's own financial footprint, and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to the bank.
"These decisions were advocated and approved at the senior levels of JPMorgan, including by the former chief executive of its asset management division and investment bank, whose inappropriate relationship with Epstein should have been evident to the bank.
"Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan," the suit said, adding that "JPMorgan knowingly, negligently and unlawfully provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise."
The bank has yet to publicly comment on the lawsuit.
Epstein was a client of JPMorgan's high-end banking services for 15 years, a relationship that continued after his conviction in 2008 on two counts of soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl, The New York Times reported. The bank removed him as a client in 2013.
In November 2022, two of Epstein's victims filed a lawsuit against JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank accusing them of ignoring warning signs about Epstein sending underage girls and women to his private island, Little St. James Island, which he bought in 1998.
That lawsuit, which is cited and attached as an exhibit to the JPMorgan claim, was recently settled for $105 million, plus half the proceeds of the sale of Little St. James island, which is listed for $55 million, the Virgin Islands Daily News reported.
George had spent time and Justice Department resources pursuing that suit against Epstein's estate, which claimed his attorneys and associates fraudulently obtained tax benefits from the Virgin Islands government through the Economic Development Authority, according to the newspaper.
The estate and its co-executors, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, have denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
The latest case that George filed against JPMorgan Chase has been marked as related to the proposed class-action lawsuits filed in the same court, also against JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.
The lawsuits are pending before US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff and have been scheduled for trial in the Southern District of New York in the summer of 2023.
JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank filed motions Friday to dismiss the lawsuits.
"The time has come for the real enablers to be held responsible, especially his wealthy friends and the financial institutions that played an integral role," the plaintiffs' attorney Brad Edwards told The Wall Street Journal.
Epstein was 66 when he was found hanged in a federal detention center in Manhattan in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking and abuse charges. A medical examiner ruled his death was a suicide.
Epstein's former girlfriend and confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, 61, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June after being convicted of sex-trafficking and abusing girls as young as 14.