JPMorgan Chase has said it fired Jeffrey Epstein as a client in 2013. Newly released documents show how its bankers maintained ties with the convicted sex offender for years as he helped manage Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black’s fortune.
Two JPMorgan managing directors, Justin Nelson and Paul Barrett, used their connection to Epstein to develop a commercial relationship between the bank and Black’s family office starting in 2014, recently released documents show. Nelson had been Epstein’s banker before the bank kicked Epstein out in 2013, while Barrett had helped find investments for him.
The Journal reported in 2023 that Nelson and Barrett had scheduled multiple meetings with Epstein from 2014 to 2017. JPMorgan said at the time that any meeting held with Epstein after 2013 was regarding other JPMorgan bank clients whom Epstein represented. Nelson remains a senior banker at JPMorgan, while Barrett left in 2017 to work directly for Epstein.
Documents released in the past several months by the Justice Department and Congress show the extent of the two senior bankers’ interactions with Epstein. Dozens of emails show the crucial role that Epstein played in helping the bankers pitch business to Black and meet wealthy individuals.
Joseph Evangelisti, a JPMorgan spokesman, reiterated in a statement that the bank “fired” Epstein as a client in August 2013. “To the extent our bankers subsequently interacted with him, it was because other clients—not JPMorgan—chose to use him as an advisor,” he said.
Evangelisti said that JPMorgan flagged Epstein’s suspicious activity to the federal government both before and after pushing him out as a client.
JPMorgan dropped Epstein as a client in 2013 after compliance officers raised concerns about his high cash withdrawals and possible implication in human-trafficking crimes.
In 2015, Barrett offered to give Epstein advice on his own investments, which were no longer at the bank. He gave advice to Epstein for his personal portfolio on at least three occasions between 2016 and 2017, emails show.
Barrett “appears to have developed a personal relationship with Epstein that he did not disclose to the bank,” Evangelisti said. He said JPMorgan “did not sanction or authorize this conduct.”
A lawyer representing Barrett declined to comment, and Barrett didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Barrett left JPMorgan in 2017 to work even more closely with Epstein, managing his money directly through a fund called Alpha Group Capital. He later worked at Citigroup, which fired him in 2023 after learning of his ties to Epstein. Citigroup declined to comment.
Barrett has said in legal filings he did “nothing inappropriate involving Mr. Epstein or his accounts,” and he wasn’t aware of any illicit activity.
Nelson, a more than 25-year employee who advises high-net-worth clients from an office in Greenwich, Conn., still works at the bank. The JPMorgan spokesman said Nelson is “an employee in good standing whose interactions were only in the context of his work with Leon Black and related entities.” Nelson declined to comment.
Chasing Elysium
For some 15 years, Epstein was a top client of JPMorgan, with dozens of accounts and tens of millions of dollars at its private bank. He communicated often with bank executives including its former head of investment banking, Jes Staley, and connected them to his network of wealthy contacts. Staley has said he regrets his relationship with Epstein.
Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008. Staley left the bank in early 2013, and JPMorgan decided to close Epstein’s accounts later that year. After Epstein’s death in 2019, JPMorgan agreed to pay $290 million to settle a suit brought on behalf of his accusers that claimed the bank had ignored red flags about him. The bank has denied any wrongdoing.
The recently released documents reveal how Epstein’s vast network kept him enmeshed with the world’s most powerful people and institutions for more than a decade after he pleaded guilty to a sex crime.
Most Read in Epstein Files
Epstein had taken on a greater role at Elysium Management, Black’s family office, in 2012.
Nelson, who had been assigned Epstein as a client in 2012, asked Epstein for help getting closer to Black and his fortune both before and after the bank said it removed Epstein as a client, emails show.
Nelson arranged to meet Epstein at his townhouse in April 2014, emails show. He followed up a day later asking Epstein’s assistant for contact information for top managers at Black’s family office to try to pitch them on the private bank. Elysium opened an account with the private bank weeks later, emails show.
Evangelisti said Black and his office directed JPMorgan’s bankers to work with Epstein on Black’s investments. “There was nothing improper about Mr. Nelson’s limited interactions with Epstein” after the bank pushed out Epstein as a client, he said.
Whit Clay, a spokesman for Elysium and Black, said Elysium “had a limited investment” with JPMorgan. He also said the Black family had a relationship with JPMorgan “that predates Epstein’s involvement.”
Black has previously said he paid Epstein for estate planning, tax work, structuring of art entities and philanthropic advice from 2012 to 2017. He stepped down from the CEO role at Apollo in 2021. He has said he didn’t engage in wrongdoing, decided to give Epstein a second chance after his 2008 conviction and regrets his involvement with Epstein.
Back in the fold
Once Elysium began working with JPMorgan in 2014, Epstein enlisted Barrett, who had previously helped Epstein invest his money. Barrett “will do as i say,” Epstein wrote in a June 2014 email to an executive working for Black’s family office.
The recently disclosed emails suggest that Nelson and Barrett saw Epstein as key to getting in on managing Black’s wealth, which stood at $5 billion in March 2013, according to other documents.
After Black canceled a meeting with JPMorgan, Barrett emailed Epstein and asked if he could help get it rescheduled, a July 2014 email shows. Six days later, Barrett told Nelson that Epstein hadn’t come back yet, prompting Nelson to say, “I need to figure out some way to get this going … maybe I should go see JE?”
In August, Epstein told Barrett that $10 million had been wired to JPMorgan that he could start investing on Black’s behalf.
Barrett started to pitch Epstein directly and made a number of investments with Elysium’s capital, including a currency investment and roughly $820,000 of Western Digital securities, emails between 2014 and 2017 show.
Evangelisti said that banking clients get to choose their advisers and that the bank “did not choose to work with Epstein.”
One of Epstein’s projects at Elysium involved getting Black more favorable terms for a variety of loans.
“Jeffrey, I would like to take a shot at the line of credit (art and plane if you are open to it),” Nelson wrote in a May 2015 email to Epstein asking him to send Black’s financial details.
Clay, the Elysium spokesman, said there was no record of any loans made by JPMorgan to the family office.
Barrett arranged to bring Monica DiCenso, then one of the private bank’s equity research strategists, to Epstein’s townhouse to meet him, according to an email the following month.
Evangelisti had no comment on the meeting. DiCenso, who now oversees JPMorgan’s Global Investment Opportunities Group, declined to comment.