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An anonymous victim of Jeffrey Epstein filed lawsuits against Bank of America and BNY over their ties to the late sex offender, in the latest class-action complaints against the financier’s banks.
The anonymous victim filed the cases in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday under the pseudonym Jane Doe, seeking class-action status and financial damages. Both cases said she met Epstein while living in Russia in 2011, and was a resident of New York from 2011 to 2019 when the deceased financier abused her.
The complaint accused BofA of “participating in and financially benefiting from Jeffrey Epstein’s widespread and well-publicised sex-trafficking operation, as well as the direct financial benefits it received therefrom”.
“Epstein’s sex-trafficking venture was not possible without the assistance and complicity of financial institutions,” the complaints said.
Both lawsuits accuse BofA and BNY of failing to file suspicious activity reports to law enforcement about Epstein’s transactions “before it was far too late”, the complaints read. Banks have a responsibility to monitor and flag suspicious activity to authorities to prevent and stop illegal activity such as money laundering.
The role of SARs in the Epstein affair has gained prominence in recent months. Senate finance committee member Ron Wyden last month called on Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to turn over Epstein-related records including the filings of such reports to the Senate.
Sigrid McCawley, managing partner of law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, the law firm that filed the complaints, said: “As Congress works toward unravelling how Jeffrey Epstein was able to orchestrate his criminal sex trafficking enterprise for decades without detection, we are taking another important step forward toward justice for survivors.”
The victim said she opened a BofA account in 2013 that Epstein and his accountant Richard Kahn used to pay her rent and to “defraud immigration officials”. She alleged Khan transferred $14,000 into the account, and that her account “continued to be utilised by Epstein and Kahn through Epstein’s death in 2019 for activities unknown and unexplained to Jane Doe”.
In the BNY case, the plaintiff alleged the bank processed a total of $378mn in payments to women who Epstein trafficked.
Lawyers David Boies and Brad Edwards, who represented victims in similar cases against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, filed Wednesday’s lawsuits. JPMorgan paid $290mn to settle class-action allegations against it lodged by Epstein’s victims, and Deutsche Bank paid $75mn.
BofA and BNY did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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