Women abused by Jeffrey Epstein sued Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon in Manhattan on Wednesday, alleging their executives violated banking laws and ignored red flags out of “absolute loyalty” to the deceased financier and disregard for victims of his child sex-trafficking ring.
The suits, brought on behalf of an individual, Jane Doe, who alleges Epstein abused her from 2011 through 2019, and a proposed class of other women who allege Epstein victimized them, allege the banks ignored “a plethora” of evidence that Epstein, for years, sexually abused vulnerable teenage girls and young women, but chose to profit instead of protect them.
Both banks “cared about one thing — profit — and showed absolute loyalty to Epstein,” the suits charge, and “knowingly provided the financial support and the veneer of institutional legitimacy for Epstein and his co-conspirators to fuel their international sex-trafficking organization under the guise of noncriminal business activities.”
A spokesman for Bank of America declined to comment. Representatives for Bank of New York Mellon could not immediately be reached.
epstein
AP This March 28, 2017 image provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein.
After Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, where he had been awaiting trial on allegations he trafficked teen girls for sex, both banks filed suspicious activity reports, known as SARs, flagging suspicious transactions, according to information made public last month by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who sits on the Senate Finance Committee.
The SARs filed by Bank of America covered $170 million in transactions between Epstein and Wall Street billionaire Leon Black. Bank of New York Mellon flagged $378 million in payments to women trafficked by Epstein.
Wednesday’s suits accuse the banks of waiting too long to alert law enforcement.
The allegations mirror those brought in similar actions against JPMorgan Chase, which agreed to pay $290 million to at least 100 victims of Epstein in a settlement reached in June 2023, and Deutsche Bank, which agreed to settle for $75 million the same year. Neither settlement included an admission of wrongdoing.
The suits come a week after Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to both banks, as well as JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, demanding records relating to a total of $1.5 billion in suspicious financial transactions they flagged tied to sex-trafficking crimes committed by Epstein, his convicted madame, Ghislaine Maxwell and their associates.
“These cases are vitally important to ensure that our financial institutions are no longer used by sex traffickers such as Jeffrey Epstein and instead comply with all KYC and other regulatory standards to protect victims from wealthy perpetrators. Our clients deserve full and final justice from all institutions Epstein used to effectuate his abuse,” one of the women’s lawyers, Brad Edwards, said in a statement to the Daily News.
Attorney Sigrid McCawley accused both banks of playing prominent roles “in facilitating Epstein’s operation that devastated the lives of countless young girls and women.”
“As Congress works toward unraveling 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,” McCawley said.
In the Bank of America suit, the anonymous lead plaintiff alleges she first opened an account at the bank at the behest of Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn, in 2013, and that it and others in her name were used by Kahn and Epstein “for activities unknown and unexplained to Jane Doe” until 2019. The woman alleges she first met Epstein when she was living in Russia in 2011.
“[E]veryone knew or should have known at least after 2006 that Epstein was running a sex-trafficking scheme paying many victims with enormous amounts of cash as well as suspicious wire transfers, and that he was using loyal employees to do so,” the suit reads.
“To the extent Bank of America could publicly feign plausible deniability before Epstein’s arrest in 2006, thereafter its ability to play dumb was eviscerated, as the details of his daily sexual abuse of young females came to public light and when he ultimately was required to register as a sex offender.”
The civil complaint against Bank of New York Mellon alleges that as far back as 2006, it did banking for MC2, a modeling agency established by Epstein and Jean Luc Brunel, the French modeling scout found dead in a Parisian jail cell in February 2022 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in eerily similar circumstances to Epstein’s demise.
“Epstein’s sex-trafficking venture was not possible without the assistance and complicity of financial institutions — specifically, banks — which provided special treatment to Jeffrey Epstein, his co-conspirators, and the sex-trafficking venture, thereby ensuring its continued operation and sexual abuse and sex-trafficking of young women and girls,” the suit charges.
“But for this financial support, Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme could not have existed and flourished.”
Originally Published: October 15, 2025 at 3:16 PM EDT
