Bank of America Settles Lawsuit From Jeffrey Epstein Accusers, Scuttling Leon Black Deposition
Bank of America has reached a settlement in principle in a proposed class-action brought by women who say the bank facilitated their abuse by jeffrey epstein, court records showed. Lawyers told the judge they reached the agreement during a telephone call, and filings to flesh out the deal are due later this month.
Settlement Terms Unreleased, Court Set To Review
Lawyers for both sides told the Manhattan federal judge in a 12 March telephone call that they had reached a settlement in principle, and the parties were ordered to submit paperwork laying out the terms by 27 March. The judge scheduled a hearing for 2 April to consider approving the deal. The terms were not immediately clear in the public docket, and a Bank of America spokesperson declined to comment.
Settlement Over Jeffrey Epstein Ties Sidelines Leon Black Deposition
The settlement removes a planned March 26 deposition of Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of Apollo Global Management, who had been flagged in the lawsuit for transfers to Epstein. The proposed class action, filed by a plaintiff using the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleged that among the transactions the bank ignored were payments from Black. If the judge approves the settlement, a scheduled trial set for 11 May will not go forward.
Judge’s Earlier Rulings and Wider Litigation Context
In a prior ruling in January, the judge determined that Bank of America must face claims that it knowingly benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking and obstructed enforcement of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Plaintiffs contend the bank ignored suspicious transactions despite plentiful information about Epstein’s crimes; the bank has said the claims were meritless and that it provided routine services to people without known links to Epstein at the time.
Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer representing the women, said: “Today’s resolution of the case against Bank of America is one more step on the road to much-deserved justice. ” The plaintiffs’ team has pursued similar claims against other financial institutions and in 2023 reached settlements of $290 million with one bank and $75 million with another on behalf of Epstein accusers.
The lawsuit’s filings also reference that Leon Black stepped down as chief executive of his firm after an outside review found he had paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate-planning services; Black has denied wrongdoing and said he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct. The case file notes that Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, and that the death was ruled a suicide by the city’s medical examiner.
With settlement papers due and a court hearing scheduled, the litigation’s next formal step is the judge’s review on 2 April. For now, the agreement halts what had been poised to be a high-profile deposition and narrows the immediate courtroom calendar tied to the long-running legal fallout over jeffrey epstein.
