JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon testified in a statement in New York on Friday that he was not involved in the accounts of former client Jeffrey Epstein, the bank said.

Dimon was being ousted by lawsuits accusing JPMorgan of facilitating and profiting from Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women, which he financed with money he had on deposit there.

“Our CEO reaffirmed after his statement that, as previously stated, he never met him, never emailed him, has no recollection of discussing his accounts internally, and was not involved in any decisions regarding his account,” one bank said. spokesman. “There are millions and millions of emails and other documents that have been produced in this case and none even come close to suggesting that he had any role in the decisions about the Epstein accounts.”

The spokeswoman added: “As we have said, we now know that Epstein’s behavior was monstrous and that his victims deserve justice. In retrospect, any association with him was a mistake and we are sorry, but these lawsuits are misdirected because we did not help.” commit the heinous crimes of him.”

Dimon gave his statement at JPMorgan’s Manhattan headquarters. Earlier, the bank lost an effort to dismiss the lawsuits by the plaintiffs: the government of the US Virgin Islands and an anonymous Epstein accuser.

The lawsuits allege that JPMorgan, the largest bank in the United States, kept Epstein on as a client even after learning he was under investigation for sexually abusing underage girls in Florida and after he pleaded guilty to a state charge. there in 2008 to pay for the sex of a minor.

The bank is accused in lawsuits in the US District Court in Manhattan of doing so to keep Epstein, who had tens of millions of dollars in accounts there, despite internal concerns about his shady reputation.

The Virgin Islands says Epstein used frequent cash withdrawals he made from those accounts to pay young women traveling to the United States so he and others could abuse them at his residence on a private island he owned.

“Human trafficking was the [principal] business from the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the Virgin Islands lawsuit says.

Dimon’s statement was taken private. The questions he was asked and the answers he gave would only be made public if they are used in court documents and proceedings, or if they are leaked.

Also Friday afternoon, Judge Jed Rakoff held a hearing on a request by attorneys for the plaintiff to certify their lawsuit as a class action, which could add up to dozens of potential plaintiffs as plaintiffs. JPMorgan opposes that request. Rakoff is expected to rule in late June on that issue.

In addition to questioning Dimon under oath, the Virgin Islands issued a series of subpoenas seeking documents related to Epstein and JPMorgan from several high-profile people the government suspects Epstein tried to recruit as bank clients.

include tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, former Disney executive Michael Ovitz, Hyatt Hotels CEO Thomas Pritzker and Mort Zuckerman, the billionaire real estate investor.

Dimon’s statement comes more than a week later german bank agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims to settle a potential class action lawsuit by one of his accusers. Deutsche Bank had hired Epstein as a client after JPMorgan severed ties with him in 2013, after keeping him as a client for 15 years.

JPMorgan has said Dimon had not reviewed Epstein’s accounts when he was a client there from 1998 until 2013, the year JPMorgan broke up with him.

Epstein died six years later by suicide in a New York jail a month after federal authorities charged him with trafficking girls for sex.

JPMorgan, in a related complaint, has said that any civil liability it may have for Epstein’s conduct rests with its former executive Jes Staley, who was a friend of Epstein’s and his main business contact at the bank.

Staley, who also denies any wrongdoing, earlier this week lost a bid to dismiss JPMorgan’s lawsuit against him, which among other things seeks to recover $80 million in compensation from him.

In addition to trying to pin the blame on Staley, JPMorgan this week accused the Virgin Islands of being “complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.”

The filing says the Virgin Islands looked the other way when Epstein trafficked young women because he was giving money, advice and favors to high-ranking officials.

The filing specifically says that Epstein paid tuition for the children of John de Jongh and his wife, Cecile, when John served as Governor of the Virgin Islands and when Cecile worked for Epstein managing his companies in the territory.

the washington post on Friday it published details of a statement taken earlier from Mary Erdoes, who heads JPMorgan’s wealth and asset management division.

“Oh wow,” Erdoes wrote in a 2011 email to another bank executive after he discovered Epstein’s sex offender status had been confirmed as a result of his conviction in Florida, The Washington Post reported.

The newspaper said it was “at least the sixth time that Erdoes…had been alerted to Epstein’s criminal or civil legal problems for sex crimes.”