Former star banker Jess Staley is 68 years old, but instead of retiring, he wants to go back to the investment business.
So, the former Barclays CEO, via a British court squeeze, testifies in a civil appeal of a ruling by the UK financial conduct authorities that he knew nothing about the size of his old fellow Epstein's dark side, namely the accusation that he had sex with a minor.
According to a former colleague, it's all about reversing the proposed ban that will allow him to lose his job at a major company for the rest of his life.
His intestines must have been spinning more on Wednesday. Staley, who took a position in the UK courthouse known as the Upper Court in London, admitted under oath that he had had sex with one of Epstein's assistants in the past.
The assistant's age was not revealed, but the consensus among bankers who know Staley is that disclosure only makes his long shot bid even more difficult.
“I don't know what he's trying to accomplish,” one former colleague said of money. “Who will hire him?”
Staley's fall is in many ways Shakespeare. He was once one of the “Masters of the Universe” with an attractive career on Wall Street. He has worked at JP Morgan for nearly 30 years in various senior positions and was considered the successor to CEO Jamie Dimon. In Dimon Signaling, he is not planning on leaving anytime soon (almost still), and he left to join Barclays, a British-based bank.
However, Staley's JPM career also had a dark corner. He ran the asset management department and private client group when the bank also counted Epstein, the bank's high-end wealth manager, as one of the biggest clients in about 15 years. Business relations then turned into what Staley called “deep” friendships, including career advice, frequent visits to Epstein's home, and trips to private island estates in the Caribbean.
Staley also defended Epstein within the company when he warned that Epstein's 2008 conviction of having sex with a minor in 2008 was enough to cut him off.
Staley left JPM and in 2015 became CEO of Barclays, even if the relationship attracted more attention. A private lawsuit filed by the Epstein accuser has been mounted. Epstein was arrested in 2019 and charged with a massive child sex trafficking scheme. Faced with a life sentence, he was found dead in his prison for an obvious suicide.
Staley has never been accused of a crime and denies that he knows the full-scale of Epstein's injustice. Nevertheless, he was kicked out in Barclays in 2021 after the Securities and Exchange Commission's UK comparable financial conduct authorities launched an investigation into allegations that Staley misunderstood the agency and the Berkeley board of directors over his deal with Epstein.
The agency then banned him from doing business in the UK. This is a death sentence close to a career in financial executives, taking into account the importance of a “city” or London in global banking.
Of course, Staley is not the only powerful man who has had friendship with Epstein for many reasons, including vast connections with super wealthy people and higher levels of academia and philanthropy. Like Staley, many of Epstein's old friends say they knew little about his personal life. They all saw his 2008 guilty plea as a minor offence, considering his mild prison sentence (only 13 months).
What makes Staley different is that he is considered a talented financial executive, his career has become (unreasonably) shortened, and he is willing to air his Dirty-Epstein-related laundry in public. In his appeal, he denied accusations of the FCA ban, saying the agency was “trying to destroy my reputation.”
Yes, Staley feels unfairly treated, but is it worth it? A former colleague says he's pretty unlikely to do a big job in banking, even if he persuaded the court to reverse the ban. Meanwhile, he must endure public shame for everything he knows about one of the most despiseed people in the financial world.
For example, Staley testified in court on Tuesday that he was “shocked and surprised” by Epstein's 2019 arrest. He also said that his 2008 guilty plea was a “isolated offence” and that he thought “I wouldn't have maintained the relationship if I had known about his monster's activity.”
JPM sued Staley for allegedly ignoring Epstein's abominable behavior, but denied it. JPM later deleted the case when it resolved its own Epstein-related conflict with the Us Virgin Islands, which sued the bank over similar issues.
In this same testimony this week, Staley said: Epstein was also well connected at the top level of JP Morgan… he seemed to know something related to a bank I didn't know. “He said other JPM executives may have stopped Epstein from doing business with the bank.
However, the real fireworks of the incident went down on Wednesday. Staley was asked about his deposit in that JPM case and he had sex with one of the Epstein staff members. As Staley put it in the UK court: “I often go to Epstein's apartment and he was late and she and I had the opportunity to get to know each other.” Then they had sex. “A great deal of my embarrassment today.” He also said Epstein didn't know about the issue.
Staley's lawyers did not reply to a call for comment. Although JPM officials had no comment, they know that there will be court officials throughout the case as the bank is very concerned about what will come up in the trial.
