Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Jes Staley was named as a trustee of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate up until at least 2015, newly released documents show, which appear to undermine court testimony from the former Barclays boss that he turned down the role.
Staley was named as one of three trustees for the Jeffrey E Epstein 2014 Trust in a notarised agreement signed and dated by him in May 2015, alongside the late paedophile’s longtime lawyer Darren Indyke and an associate named David Mitchell, a property investor.
Trustees were “entitled” to annual pay of $250,000 as well as reimbursement of reasonable costs and expenses, the document reads, although it is unclear if Staley was compensated for his role.
The document is part of a vast trove released in late January by the US Department of Justice pertaining to its investigation into the disgraced financier.
Staley told a UK court last year that he had declined a request from Epstein to be named a trustee of his estate, as he sought to overturn a lifetime ban by the Financial Conduct Authority over his ties to the notorious sex trafficker.
“Mr Epstein also wanted to name you as trustee of the Epstein estate, didn’t he?” Staley was asked under cross-examination against the UK financial watchdog in March.
“And I turned it down,” he responded.
The FCA’s barrister, Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, continued: “You didn’t flag to Barclays, did you, that Mr Epstein had asked you to be a trustee?”
Staley responded: “I believe this happened very early on whilst I was at BlueMountain, and again, I declined it and refused to be a trustee.”
When pressed further, Staley added that “the fact that . . . I’d turned down being a trustee for his estate might be indicative that I was not a close personal friend”.
Staley worked at hedge fund BlueMountain Capital from 2013 until 2015. Barclays announced that Staley would become its chief executive in October 2015. The trust was amended and then signed by Staley a month earlier, according to the documents released by the DoJ.
The Upper Tribunal decided in June that Staley had failed to make his case against the FCA, upholding its decision that he had recklessly misled the watchdog, and finding that he had made a “serious failure of judgment”.
Staley has long maintained that he and Epstein had a “close professional relationship” but that they were not friends. He said in 2025 that he had not been aware of Epstein’s “monstrous activities” during the period he maintained a relationship with him.
The 2014 trust was eventually revoked and a 2019 version does not name Staley as a trustee.
The former Barclays boss was also appointed an executor in versions of Epstein’s will, along with former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, the FT previously reported. Epstein’s final will did not name Staley as executor.
Epstein was arrested in 2008 and served a 13-month sentence in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from a minor. He died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on separate sex-trafficking charges, which forced a reckoning for many of the senior business and political figures that had maintained contact with him.
Staley, a former senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, has said he was introduced to Epstein in the early 2000s as a client of the bank. He maintained contact with him at least until late 2015, when Staley took the top job at Barclays. He has said he cut off contact with Epstein before becoming chief executive.
The two men exchanged more than a thousand emails with Staley seeking advice on matters ranging from his pay at JPMorgan to his daughter’s education and referring to Epstein as “family” on several occasions. They also made more obscure references, including the now infamous email from Staley saying “that was fun. Say hi to Snow White.”
He told the court that he could not recall what the Snow White email referred to.
A lawyer for Staley did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The FCA declined to comment.