Bank of America to pay $72.5M to settle Epstein accusers’ suit

Bank of America agreed to pay $72.5 million to settle a proposed class action brought by women who accuse the bank of facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse. The deal requires approval from U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, with a hearing set for Thursday.

The terms were outlined in court filings on Friday, following notice earlier this month that the parties had reached a “settlement in principle.”

Filed in October under the pseudonym Jane Doe, the complaint alleges the nation’s second-largest bank ignored suspicious transactions tied to Epstein despite a “plethora” of information about his conduct, prioritizing profit over protecting victims. In court papers, Bank of America has maintained it provided routine services to customers who at the time had no known links to Epstein and called broader claims of involvement “threadbare and meritless.”

In January, Rakoff allowed portions of Doe’s case to proceed, ruling that Bank of America must face claims it knowingly benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking and impeded enforcement of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act. That ruling opened the case to discovery before the parties informed the court of a potential resolution.

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Doe’s complaint highlights transactions that included payments to Epstein by Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of Apollo Global Management. An outside review previously found Black paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning. Black has denied wrongdoing and stated he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct. He stepped down as Apollo’s chief executive in 2021.

The settlement follows other agreements with Epstein’s accusers involving major banks. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million, and Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $75 million, in separate cases. Lawyers for Doe are appealing Rakoff’s January dismissal of a similar lawsuit against Bank of New York Mellon.

Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, according to the New York City medical examiner.