Bank of America Corp. has agreed to settle a proposed class action lawsuit on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein victims who accused the bank of aiding in the deceased financier’s sex-trafficking, according to a court record.
The agreement in principle was noted Monday in the court docket in the case. Terms of the deal were not immediately available. Any settlement must be approved by US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan.
A representative for Bank of America declined to comment. The bank has denied wrongdoing.
The same lawyers who previously secured settlements with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Deutsche Bank AG over Epstein ties sued Bank of America in October. While the earlier cases were over Epstein’s own banking relationships, the Bank of America suit mainly focused on accounts allegedly used by “his co-conspirators, associates and victims.”
The timing of the agreement will likely allow Apollo Global Management Inc. co-founder Leon Black to avoid a scheduled March 26 deposition in which he was to sit for eight hours of closed-door testimony in the case. Details of the settlement are set to be filed with the court on March 27.
According to the suit, Black transferred $170 million to Epstein from Bank of America accounts. Lawyers for the victims alleged those transfers were “the primary means by which the sex-trafficking venture was funded and for which there was no apparent business or lawful purpose.”
A spokesman for Black declined to comment. Black has consistently denied wrongdoing and was not named as a defendant in the case.
The suit also alleged Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell used accounts at Bank of America. Maxwell was convicted of sex-trafficking in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
“The women entrapped and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell started a monumental reckoning with their brave voices and fearlessness,” Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for the victims, said in a statement. “The road to justice for these women has been long and trying. Today’s resolution of the case against Bank of America is one more step on the road to much deserved justice.”
In June 2023, JPMorgan agreed to pay $290 million to settle Epstein-related suits. Deutsche Bank reached a $75 million pact earlier that year.
The suit accused Bank of America of actively concealing “details and evidence concerning its assisting and facilitating Epstein’s sex trafficking.” Epstein’s scheme would not have been possible without the help of powerful individuals and institutions, said the lead plaintiff, referred to in the case as Jane Doe.
Rakoff in January dismissed several of the claims against Bank of America, but permitted the victims to move ahead with claims that it knowingly benefited from Epstein’s conduct and obstructed enforcement of the federal sex-trafficking statute.
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. was also sued late last year, but Rakoff threw out that case entirely in January, finding that the complaint didn’t sufficiently allege BNY was aware of Epstein’s activities.
The first public hint that a settlement was in the works came in a March 11 phone hearing at which Black’s lawyer requested a delay to his deposition because the parties were close to resolving the case. The following day, the judge abruptly canceled a previously scheduled hearing.
The case is Doe v. Bank of America, 25-cv-08520, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
Photo: A Bank of America location in New York. Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
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