Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images; REUTERS/Marco Bello
- The ex-first lady of the Virgin Islands consulted Jeffrey Epstein on a sex offender bill, JPMorgan said.
- She also asked Epstein to pay college tuition for at least one of her kids, the bank said.
- The filings come as JPMorgan is accused by the Virgin Islands of facilitating Epstein's alleged crimes.
Jeffrey Epstein paid college tuition for the children of the US Virgin Islands' then-first lady, the same year she consulted him on changes to a sex offender registration law, according to JPMorgan Chase.
Cecile de Jongh, wife of then-Governor John de Jongh Jr., sent an email to Epstein containing a $25,000 tuition bill for Skidmore College, a private liberal arts school in New York, per court filings from JPMorgan.
"Please approve," the email's subject line said, per the filings.
That email was sent in May 2011, according to documents filed in the Manhattan federal court on Wednesday and seen by Insider.
They were submitted as part of JPMorgan's defense in a lawsuit from the government of the Virgin Islands, which accused the bank of allowing Epstein to bankroll his alleged crimes.
As both parties went to court, JPMorgan in turn accused de Jongh, who worked as an office manager for Epstein, of acting as his "primary conduit for spreading money and influence" in the Virgin Islands.
Now, the bank has released a cache of documents that say de Jongh worked closely with Epstein, and facilitated his sex-trafficking scheme.
Days after de Jongh sent the tuition bill to Epstein, she sent him another email about updated language for a sex offender registration bill, per JPMorgan's filings.
Epstein responded with suggested changes to the language, per the filing. "We should add out of country for more than 7 days, otherwise I could not go for a day trip to Tortola, at the last minute," Epstein wrote in an email.
"I will forward this suggestion and let you know," de Jongh replied.
Epstein, who was already a registered sex offender at the time, made further suggestions for the bill to "distinguish between offenders and predators."
"These files could be also accessible by the press. If we are not careful, a list of who I stay with should violate my privacy," Epstein added, per the filing.
Later in the email thread, de Jongh responded that the issue "needs to be settled by Thursday" because a person identified as "J" would be gone for a week and the "AG" would need to submit the bill update soon.
JPMorgan's filings also said that de Jongh helped Epstein get visas for several of the financier's alleged victims, and arranged special classes for them at the University of the Virgin Islands.
"They are structuring the class around the ladies. Please let me know so that they know what to do or not to do," de Jongh told Epstein in a June 2013 email, per the bank's filings.
De Jongh was first lady of the Virgin Islands between 2007 and 2015. Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 as he was charged with sex trafficking, owned the entire island of Little St. James in the territory and had purchased property tonight.
De Jongh did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Insider outside regular business hours.
Venetia Velazquez, a spokesperson for the Virgin Islands attorney general, told The Washington Post in a statement: "JPMorgan Chase has cherry-picked and mischaracterized Epstein's interactions with U.S. Virgin Islands officials and residents in an attempt to distract and shift blame away from its role in facilitating Jeffrey Epstein's heinous crimes."
On Monday, JPMorgan settled a separate, class action lawsuit with one of Epstein's victims, an unnamed plaintiff who met Epstein while working as a ballet dancer in New York. The lawsuit accused the bank of "facilitating a sexual abuse and sex trafficking operation for many years."
Meanwhile, the firm is suing one of its former executives, Jes Staley, alleging that he knew about Epstein's sex trafficking but hid his crimes to keep him as a client.
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