The Trustee With No Exit

On November 18, 2014, Jes Staley walked into a notary's office in Richmond County, New York, and signed a trust document. The Jeffrey E. Epstein 2014 Trust named him — alongside Darren Indyke and David Mitchell — as one of three trustees of an estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars.1

Thirteen months later, he became CEO of Barclays PLC.

He signed the trust again on May 1, 2015.2 And again in September 2015, this time ratifying provisions designed to keep employee-witnesses silent for a year after Jeffrey Epstein's death.3 Three versions of the trust. Three notarizations. Three separate decisions to bind himself to the estate of a convicted sex offender.

No resignation document has been found in 1.38 million EFTA documents.1

The Banker

Before the trust, there was the banking relationship. Jes Staley's connection to Jeffrey Epstein began around 2000, when Staley headed JPMorgan's private banking division. Epstein maintained approximately $99 million across three entity accounts at the bank.4

In 2008, Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida. JPMorgan's compliance process flagged the account. The question went to Staley:

"Mr. Epstein was convicted of a felony and is currently serving a Jail term. [J]es Staley conferred with Steven Cutler and the decision was made to keep him as a PB client but only for banking and custody."5

Steven Cutler was JPMorgan's General Counsel — the bank's top lawyer. Staley went to the very top, and the answer came back: keep him. A convicted sex offender with $99 million in accounts would remain a private banking client.

The relationship extended beyond banking. In 2005, during the Florida criminal investigation, Staley flew on Epstein's plane with Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova — two women later identified as co-conspirators in the trafficking operation.4 A February 2009 compliance review noted that "Ms. Maxwell is known to Jes Staley."6

By 2010, the dynamic had shifted. Epstein was vouching for Staley's career:

"jes staley, next head of jpm will be at my house at five tomorrow"7

This was an email from Epstein to Mortimer Zuckerman — the real estate billionaire and media publisher — casually predicting Staley's promotion. The relationship between banker and client had become something else: a patron-protégé arrangement in which the convicted sex offender positioned himself as kingmaker.

The Directed Massage

The prosecution memo documents what happened behind the doors of Epstein's New York residence:

"Epstein instructed [victim] to provide a massage to Jes Staley in Epstein's New York residence. [Victim] attempted to give him an ordinary massage, but he forced [victim] to touch his genitals and then raped [victim]. Afterwards, [victim] complained to Epstein, who said he left it to [victim] and Staley to decide whether to engage in sex."8

The victim went to the man who sent her. His response was not horror, or intervention, or accountability. It was delegation: the woman who had just been raped could work it out with her rapist.

The same account was briefed across multiple FBI units. The PROMINENT NAMES briefing — distributed in four variants to different FBI divisions — condensed it:

"Jes Staley: [Victim] stated Epstein told her to give Staley a massage at Epstein's mansion. Staley forced her to hands on his crotch and had 'rough sex' with her."9

JPMorgan's own records corroborated the timeline. The bank produced communications between Staley and Epstein from around the period of the assault — not voluntarily, but under compulsion from SDNY:

"These productions include messages exchanged between Jes Staley and Epstein around the period when [victim] recalled being [raped] by Staley during [a massage] at Epstein's New York residence."10

The Manhattan District Attorney's office assessed the victim's credibility:

"AW / DANY do not doubt her allegations against JE and LB. They believe she was also abused by Staley. They have not found any independent corroboration."11

They found no independent corroboration beyond the JPMorgan timeline evidence — but they did not doubt her.

Three Signatures

It is against this backdrop — the banking relationship, the plane flight with co-conspirators, the rape allegation — that Staley's trust involvement must be understood.

The original trust names Staley as a founding trustee:

"THIS TRUST AGREEMENT ('Agreement'), dated November 18, 2014, by and among JEFFREY E. EPSTEIN, as Grantor ('Grantor'), and DARREN K. INDYKE, JAMES E. STALEY and DAVID MITCHELL, as Trustees ('Trustees')."1

He was not added later. He was there from the beginning — one of three men entrusted with administering an estate worth an estimated $340-400 million.

Six months later, he signed again. The Amendment and Restatement added trustee compensation of $250,000 per year, plus full cancellation of any debts owed to Epstein or his entities.2 By signing, Staley accepted both the fiduciary responsibility and the financial rewards.

Then came September 2015 — the final signature. The First Amendment added the provisions that transformed the trust from an estate plan into a witness control system: the employment cliff requiring a year of continued service after Epstein's death, the golden handcuffs paying two select employees $200,000 each for two years of silence, and the forfeiture trigger for "misconduct."3

The Missing Resignation

On December 1, 2015, Staley became CEO of Barclays PLC — one of the world's largest banks, regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority.

The trust provides a simple resignation mechanism:

"Any Trustee may resign at any time, without the approval of any court, by an instrument in writing filed with the trust records."1

A single letter. That is all it would have taken.

If Staley never resigned, then for the duration of his tenure as Barclays CEO — from December 2015 through his forced departure in November 2021 — he simultaneously served as trustee of the estate of a convicted sex offender. A fiduciary relationship with an estate whose controlling attorney told employees not to talk to the police. An estate whose primary beneficiary was the daughter of a man documented in the same prosecution memo for matching criminal conduct.

On December 10, 2019 — nine days before the prosecution memo was delivered — SDNY coordinated with the UK Financial Conduct Authority about Staley. The request was specific: "not go overt anytime soon."12 Prosecutors were aware that their investigation touched a sitting bank CEO. They asked the British regulators to hold.

Staley resigned from Barclays in November 2021, after the FCA investigation into his personal relationship with Epstein. The FCA probe focused on Staley's characterization of the relationship. Whether it also examined the trust — the three signatures, the missing resignation, the simultaneous fiduciary duty — is not documented in the EFTA corpus.

The Last Contact

"A person close to Mr. Staley" told the Wall Street Journal that Staley "hasn't had contact with Mr. Epstein in several years."

The documents tell a different story.

On November 28, 2018 — the same month the Miami Herald published "Perversion of Justice" — Staley's daughter Alexa emailed Epstein directly:

"Saying hello..."13

A simple greeting. But its timing — during the media firestorm that would lead to Epstein's arrest seven months later — and its source — the daughter of a man who claimed to have severed contact — contradict the public narrative. The family connection persisted even as the walls closed in.

Not Analyzed for Charges

The prosecution memo documents the rape allegation on page 32. It presents the JPMorgan corroboration on page 67. It notes the FBI briefings. It records the victim's account in detail.

Then comes the charging analysis — Section IV, pages 74 through 85. Five subjects are evaluated: three redacted individuals, Lesley Groff, and Ghislaine Maxwell.14

Staley is not among them.

The prosecutors documented rape, presented corroborating bank communications, noted DANY's credibility assessment — and then did not evaluate whether charges were warranted. Staley's conduct appears in the factual sections as evidence of the enterprise's operations. A directed massage. A victim complaint met with indifference. A pattern shared with Leon Black, whose parallel assault is documented in the same memo.8

But the men who committed the violence were never subjected to the same analytical framework as the women who scheduled it.

The Architecture of Entanglement

The three roles were not sequential — they overlapped. Staley was simultaneously a banker who decided to retain Epstein post-conviction, an accused rapist whose assault was documented by prosecutors, and a trustee with fiduciary authority over the estate that would later be used to keep witnesses quiet.

As trustee, Staley was entitled to $250,000 per year.2 Over approximately 4.75 years — November 2014 through Epstein's death in August 2019 — his compensation totaled roughly $1.19 million. He had fiduciary responsibility for five properties worth $133-190 million, cash bequests exceeding $85 million, and a residuary estate of $100 million or more.

He shared this responsibility with Darren Indyke — the attorney who told employees not to talk to police — and David Mitchell. Any two of the three trustees could act by majority rule. Any decision Indyke made about enforcing the employment cliff, interpreting "misconduct," or administering bequests required only one other trustee's assent.

Whether Staley provided that assent — whether he participated in any trust administration, whether he was consulted on witness control decisions, whether he was involved at all after becoming Barclays CEO — cannot be determined from the public record. The only documented evidence of his trustee role is his three signatures.

Three signatures. Zero charges. And a resignation that was never found.

This story is sourced from documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. For the complete analytical report, open questions, and full source document register, see the [source case file](/case-files/staley-trustee-banker).