- Bank of America is accused of enabling Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking by processing millions in suspicious transactions while failing to file timely SARs.
- Class-action suit seeks justice for survivors and ties into broader congressional probes into major banks' roles in facilitating Epstein's global operation.
NEW YORK — In a chilling reminder of how financial power can shield dark secrets, a federal lawsuit filed this week accuses Bank of America of turning a blind eye to Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious sex trafficking operation, allowing it to thrive for years through unchecked transactions and ignored red flags.
The anonymous plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, claims the bank not only facilitated Epstein’s abuse but profited handsomely from it, processing millions in suspicious payments while failing to alert authorities until after his death.
The complaint, lodged Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, paints a grim picture of institutional complicity.
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Jane Doe alleges she first encountered Epstein in 2011 while living in Russia, where she says he drew her into a web of coercion and control.
Over the next eight years, Epstein allegedly raped her, forcibly assaulted her, and compelled her to engage in sex acts with other women at least 100 times.
“Epstein indoctrinated and coerced Jane Doe into a cult-like life,” the lawsuit states, describing how he dominated her financially, emotionally, and psychologically.
Details of the Financial Disgrace
By 2013, Epstein’s grip tightened through her bank account. At the direction of his longtime accountant, Richard Kahn, Jane Doe opened an account at Bank of America.
What followed was a torrent of erratic transfers — rent payments, payroll deposits from a supposed “sham company,” and unexplained wires totaling amounts far beyond her modest income.
One such deposit, around $14,000, was just the start; Epstein’s employees allegedly routed funds through her accounts without her knowledge, even using them to fabricate records for U.S. immigration officials.
As late as 2019 — months after Epstein’s suicide in a Manhattan jail cell — activity persisted in accounts tied to her name.
These weren’t isolated slips, the suit argues. They were “incredibly alarming and erratic banking behavior” that screamed for scrutiny.
Yet Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, filed no Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) — mandatory alerts to federal watchdogs about potential money laundering or fraud — until 2020, well after Epstein’s crimes had unraveled.
Even then, the two SARs it did submit flagged just $170 million in payments from billionaire Leon Black to Epstein, years after the fact.
“Bank of America had a plethora of information regarding Epstein’s sex trafficking operation but chose profit over protecting the victims,” the complaint charges bluntly.
In return for overlooking the red flags, the bank allegedly reaped interest, commissions, service fees, and other perks from Epstein and his network.
Without such “complicit financial banking institutions,” the suit contends, Epstein “could not have expanded his illegal operations” to the global scale it reached, ensnaring “thousands of women and girls.”
Four Banks Get Connected to Epstein’s Network
The timing of the filing feels pointed. It comes just days after Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, launched a probe into four major banks — including Bank of America — over roughly $1.5 billion in Epstein-linked transactions.
In a letter dated October 8 to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Raskin didn’t mince words. “These SARs not only were untimely — filed years after the transactions in question — but Bank of America processed the payments without asking for information as to the nature of the transactions,” he wrote.
Banks, he added, are “often the first line of defense in detecting serious federal crimes, especially the ones that involve significant flows of money like sex trafficking.”
Had they acted sooner, Raskin suggested, “flagging and detecting Mr. Epstein’s suspicious withdrawals may well have stopped his crimes years earlier.”
Raskin’s investigation, which Republicans on the committee blocked from subpoenaing bank CEOs last month, underscores a broader reckoning.
It’s the latest chapter in a saga that’s ensnared Wall Street giants since Epstein’s 2019 death, ruled a suicide while he awaited trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
His 2008 Florida plea deal — a controversial sweetheart arrangement for soliciting prostitution from minors — had already branded him a registered sex offender, yet banks kept the money flowing.
Pending Class-Action Lawsuits in Jeffrey Epstein Case
This isn’t Jane Doe’s fight alone. Represented by heavyweights David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner and Sigrid McCawley of Edwards Henderson — the same team that extracted $290 million from JPMorgan Chase in 2023 and $75 million from Deutsche Bank the same year — the suit seeks class-action status for all Epstein victims.
“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 a statement.
Neither Boies nor McCawley responded to requests for additional comment, but their track record speaks volumes.
JPMorgan’s settlement came after a U.S. Virgin Islands lawsuit accused the bank of ignoring Epstein’s abuses on his private island, Little St. James.
“We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes,” the bank said at the time, though it admitted no wrongdoing.
Deutsche Bank’s payout followed similar claims: from 2013 to 2018, after JPMorgan cut ties, it opened over 40 accounts for Epstein, processing payments to victims and co-conspirators while raking in millions in fees.
New York regulators fined the German lender $150 million in 2020 for its “sloppiness.”
A parallel suit filed the same day targets the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), alleging it loaned money to MC2 Model Management — a Paris-based agency Epstein co-founded with Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modeling scout later charged with rape and accused of trafficking girls for Epstein.
BNY allegedly handled $378 million in payments to victims, filing SARs only posthumously.
“Epstein could not expand his operation… without complicit financial banking institutions that would ignore red flags,” the BNY complaint echoes.
Bank of America declined to comment on the allegations, as did BNY.
But the suits arrive amid fresh scrutiny of Epstein’s enablers. Unsealed documents from 2024 — including depositions from victims like Virginia Giuffre, who tragically died by suicide in April 2025 — revealed more about how banks like JPMorgan gave Epstein “special treatment.”
Giuffre, who settled her own claims against Britain’s Prince Andrew, described in testimony her “duty” to speak for other survivors.
What Happens Next?
On Capitol Hill, Raskin’s letters to CEOs at JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, BNY, and Bank of America demand records by month’s end.
They cite FBI Director Kash Patel’s September testimony, where he lamented Republican stonewalling on subpoenas.
Meanwhile, the Epstein estate handed over a third batch of files to the House Oversight Committee last month, including his infamous “black book” with a birthday note from Donald Trump — though no evidence ties the former president to crimes.
Epstein’s shadow lingers. Ghislaine Maxwell, his convicted accomplice, is serving 20 years for recruiting girls as young as 14.
In July 2025, the Justice Department reiterated no “client list” exists, quashing conspiracy theories but fueling demands for transparency.
Florida released 2006 grand jury transcripts earlier this year, exposing how prosecutors ignored teen assault testimony in Epstein’s plea deal.
For survivors like Jane Doe, these lawsuits aren’t just about money — though unspecified damages are sought.
They’re a bid to dismantle the systems that let predators like Epstein operate in plain sight.
As Raskin put it, banks hold the power to stop crimes “before it was far too late.”
Whether courts agree remains to be seen, but one thing’s clear: the reckoning is far from over.
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