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☆ Epstein Victim May Pursue Claims Against Two Wall St. Executives
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least one longtime sexual abuse victim of Jeffrey Epstein who received a monetary settlement from his estate can also pursue separate claims against two powerful former Wall Street executives who had ties to the convicted sex offender, according to two people briefed on the matter. The exceptions made for Mr. Black and Mr. Staley show how the two men continue to be dogged by their social and business dealings with Mr. Epstein four years after he killed himself in a federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The arrangement could set a precedent for other victims of Mr. Epstein, potentially exposing Mr. Black and Mr. Staley to further scrutiny and liability. “She was a victim, potentially, to these individuals,” Mr. Kahn said in the deposition, according to one of the people. Mr. Kahn said that Mr. Epstein’s estate agreed to the carve-out provision so that the unnamed woman could potentially sue for “harms that she incurred.”

Persons: Jeffrey Epstein, Richard Kahn, Leon Black, James E, Staley, Black, Epstein, ” Mr, Kahn, Epstein’s, ” Organizations: Wall Street, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Mr

☆ Banks Fined $549 Million Over Use of WhatsApp and Other Messaging Apps
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Federal regulators continued their crackdown against employees of Wall Street firms using private messaging apps to communicate, with 11 brokerage firms and investment advisers agreeing Tuesday to pay $549 million in fines. The latest round of fines adds to the nearly $2 billion in penalties against big Wall Street banks announced last year for similar violations. In all, the regulators have now penalized more than two dozen banks and investment firms for not properly policing employees use of “off channel” messaging services like WhatsApp, iMessage and Signal. charged the financial institutions for failing to properly “maintain and preserve” all official communications by their employees. Federal securities laws require banks and investments firms to maintain records and make sure their employees are not conducting company business using unauthorized means of communication.

Persons: Wells, Société Organizations: Wall Street, BNP, Bank of Montreal, Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Locations: Wells Fargo, Société Générale

☆ Divvy Wants to Make Rent-to-Own Deals Easy. Many Customers Find Them Hard.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“With mortgage rates at all-time highs, our mission is more critical than ever,” Adena Hefets, the chief executive and a founder of Divvy, said in a statement. The higher payments have become a struggle for some customers, especially because of rapid inflation. The company, which charges a 5 percent fee for late payments, said it evicted only as a last resort. This spring, Divvy said, it put in place a new system to prioritize maintenance requests, including a 24-hour hotline for customers. They said they had been referred to Divvy by a real estate broker who worked closely with the company.

Persons: Hefets, Divvy, “, Divvy’s Organizations: Private, U.S . Locations: Atlanta, Georgia, U.S, U.S . Virgin Islands

Federal prosecutors pursuing the criminal case against the cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried said on Wednesday that they were dropping a charge that Mr. Bankman-Fried violated campaign finance rules. Mr. Bankman-Fried was charged with fraud and campaign finance violations last December after the sudden collapse of his company, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He was quickly extradited to the United States from the Bahamas, where FTX was based. But in a court filing on Wednesday night, the prosecutors said that they had been informed by officials in the Bahamas that the nation’s government had not intended to extradite Mr. Bankman-Fried on the campaign finance charge. “In keeping with its treaty obligations to the Bahamas, the government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count,” the prosecutors’ filing said.

Persons: Sam Bankman, Fried, FTX, Mr Organizations: “ Locations: United States, Bahamas

☆ Senate Committee Presses Leon Black on Epstein Tax Advice
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Senate committee is investigating whether $158 million that the billionaire investor Leon Black paid the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein for tax and estate planning services should have been classified as a gift, as part of a broader inquiry into tax-avoidance schemes by ultrawealthy individuals, according to a letter reviewed by The New York Times. In addition to the fees that Mr. Black said he had paid Mr. Epstein, the Senate Finance Committee is looking into several trusts that Mr. Black used to save on taxes and advice that Mr. Epstein gave on art purchases, according to the letter, which the committee’s chairman, Senator Ron Wyden, sent to the private equity mogul on Monday. Mr. Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, wrote that the committee was dissatisfied with the information that Mr. Black, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, had provided it to date and requested his cooperation. “A significant number of open questions remain regarding the tax-avoidance scheme you implemented with Epstein’s assistance, including whether the exorbitant amounts paid to Epstein should have been classified as a gift for federal tax purposes,” the senator wrote. Gifts exceeding an annual threshold in value are subject to federal taxes ranging from 18 to 40 percent.

Persons: Leon Black, Jeffrey Epstein, Black, Epstein, Ron Wyden, Wyden Organizations: The New York Times, Senate Finance, Mr, Democrat, Apollo Global Management Locations: Oregon

☆ Leon Black Agreed to Pay $62.5 Million to Settle Epstein-Related Claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The previously undisclosed settlement came after the Virgin Islands reached a $105 million deal in November with Mr. Epstein’s estate. The Virgin Islands government produced its settlement agreement with Mr. Black in response to a public records request by The New York Times. The $62.5 million settlement followed that session. Mr. Black agreed to pay in cash, according the settlement document. Those dealings, including the revelation that he paid $158 million to Mr. Epstein for tax and estate planning services, had become a source of embarrassment for Mr. Black in the years after Mr. Epstein’s death.

Persons: Leon Black, Jeffrey Epstein, Epstein, Black Organizations: U.S . Virgin, Virgin, Mr, JPMorgan Chase, Virgin Islands, The New York Times, The Times Locations: U.S, U.S . Virgin Islands, Manhattan

Three months before the cryptocurrency market imploded last year, Caroline Ellison, the 27-year-old chief executive of the crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, was racked with self-doubt. “I have been feeling pretty unhappy and overwhelmed with my job,” Ms. Ellison wrote in a Google document in February 2022. She did not think that she was well suited to running Alameda or was a particularly decisive leader, she wrote in another Google document. They had dated on and off, and Ms. Ellison worried about “making things weird” and “causing drama.”“It doesn’t really feel like there’s an end in sight,” she wrote in the February 2022 document. Now Ms. Ellison is poised to be a star witness at Mr. Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial, which is scheduled for Oct. 2.

Persons: Caroline Ellison, “, ” Ms, Ellison, Ms, Sam Bankman, ”, Bankman Organizations: Alameda Research Locations: Alameda

☆ SPAC Tied to Trump’s Media Company Will Pay $18 Million to Regulators
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that it had reached a settlement with the cash-rich shell company that planned to merge with former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company, potentially paving the way for the much-delayed deal to proceed. Under the settlement, Digital World Acquisition Corp. will pay a penalty of $18 million and revise some of its corporate filings to comply with federal securities laws. was investigating whether Digital World had flouted merger laws governing special purpose acquisition companies. charged Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, with misleading investors with its disclosures. “These disclosure failures are particularly problematic because investors focus on factors such as the SPAC’s management team and potential merger targets when making financial decisions,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement.

Persons: Donald J, ”, Gurbir, Grewal Organizations: Securities, Exchange

☆ The Fed Slaps Deutsche Bank With a $186 Million Fine
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Deutsche has a troubled history with regulators and prosecutors. The bank also paid a $150 million fine to a New York bank regulator in 2020, partly over its banking relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Fed orders from 2015 and 2017 stemmed from Deutsche’s relationship with the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, which has also run afoul of the authorities. Bank regulators had found that in its dealings with Danske Bank, Deutsche did not properly monitor transactions involving high-risk customers. Last year, Danske, the largest bank in Denmark, pleaded guilty to charges arising from a long-running money-laundering investigation.

Persons: Jeffrey Epstein, Deutsche Organizations: Danske Bank, Bank, Deutsche, Estonian, Danske Locations: New York, Estonian, Denmark

☆ U.S. Virgin Islands Seeks $190 Million From JPMorgan in Epstein Lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-14 | by ( Matthew Goldstein | More About Matthew Goldstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands said in a court filing on Friday that it is seeking at least $190 million in penalties from JPMorgan Chase for the bank’s failure to detect and report the sex trafficking operation run by the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in the U.S. territory. Lawyers for the Virgin Islands disclosed the sum in a legal filing in response to a request from the federal judge in Manhattan overseeing the lawsuit it filed against JPMorgan last year, which claimed that the bank turned a blind eye to Mr. Epstein’s activities. In the filing, the Virgin Islands’ attorney general’s office said it also wants the nation’s largest bank to put in new policies to prevent it from providing financial services to human traffickers. “We are pursuing this enforcement action because JPMorgan Chase’s institutional failure enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking,” said U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Ariel Smith in a statement.

Persons: Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein’s, ”, Ariel Smith Organizations: U.S . Virgin Islands, JPMorgan Chase, Lawyers, Virgin Islands, JPMorgan Locations: U.S, Manhattan

Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former chief executive of the bankrupt cryptocurrency firm Celsius, was arrested on Thursday and charged with fraud, federal prosecutors said. Mr. Mashinsky was also sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Mashinsky was arrested at his home in New York, a person close to the investigation said. The charges against him include wire fraud, commodities fraud and manipulation of securities prices. As its charismatic pitchman, Mr. Mashinsky appeared in YouTube videos where he claimed that Celsius was a safer, more egalitarian alternative to traditional banks.

Persons: Alex Mashinsky, Mashinsky Organizations: Securities and Exchange Commission, Futures Trading Commission, Federal Trade Commission Locations: New York

More than six million pages of emails, Slack messages and other digital records. For months, federal prosecutors building the criminal case against the fallen cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried have assembled a vast and unusually varied array of evidence. The documents include crypto transaction logs and encrypted group chats from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s collapsed exchange, FTX, as well as strikingly personal reflections recorded by a key witness in the case. The mountain of evidence ranks among the largest ever collected in a white-collar securities fraud case prosecuted by the federal authorities in Manhattan, according to data provided by a person with knowledge of the matter. In the 2004 securities fraud prosecution of Martha Stewart, for example, prosecutors produced 525,000 pages of evidence to the defense team, but the numbers have increased significantly in recent years.

Persons: Slack, Sam Bankman, Bankman, Fried’s, Martha Stewart Locations: Manhattan

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