Former Barclays boss Staley faces Epstein sex trafficking claims

Former Barclays boss Jes Staley is facing new allegations about his relationship with the disgraced Jeffrey Epstein — including a suggestion that he “may have been involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.”

The claim was contained in court documents filed in New York by the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is suing Staley’s former employer, JP Morgan, for allegedly turning a blind eye to Epstein’s crimes.

Epstein, who passed away in 2019, was a client of Staley’s when he worked for JP Morgan.

Staley, 66, became CEO of Barclays in 2015, but stepped down in November 2021 following a preliminary investigation by City regulators into his relationship with Epstein.

The banker is accused of regularly visiting and corresponding with Epstein in the US Virgin Islands while he was behind bars, the papers said. Parts of the pending case documents have been blacked out, but some had not been redacted this week.

“Between 2008 and 2012, Staley exchanged approximately 1,200 emails with Epstein from his JP Morgan email account,” the papers say.

“This communication shows a close personal connection and a “deep” friendship between the two men and even suggests that Staley may have been involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking business.

“Staley corresponded with Epstein while Epstein was in prison and he visited Epstein’s residence in the Virgin Islands.”

The claim also states that “human trafficking was the main activity of the accounts Epstein kept at JP Morgan.”

It said the bank did business with Epstein from 1998 to 2013, managing about 55 accounts associated with the financier, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The papers said none of the emails between Epstein and Mr. Staley were “flagged in connection with risk assessments of Epstein’s accounts” and that JP Morgan “even asked Staley to discuss the trafficking allegations with Epstein.”

The bank is said to have “ignored numerous red flags.” The bills were used to pay women and related businesses, including “numerous women with Eastern European surnames who were publicly and internally identified as Epstein recruiters and/or victims,” ​​the documents said.

A woman who had been paid more than £490,000 by Epstein was “according to news reports in J.P. Morgan’s due diligence reports” “bought” by him at the age of 14, the papers said.

In July 2013, after Staley left JP Morgan, the U.S. bank’s compliance officer ended the relationship with Epstein.

Staley’s attorney declined to comment, but an attorney representing him previously said, “We want to make it very clear that our client was not involved in any of the alleged crimes committed by Epstein.”

JP Morgan declined to comment.

Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan prison cell in 2019 at the age of 66 in what was ruled a suicide, awaiting trial on charges of child sexual abuse and sex trafficking.

Last June, his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, 61, was sentenced to 20 years for smuggling minors for sex.