Jed Rakoff

Jed S. Rakoff (born 1943, in Philadelphia) is a senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, nominated by Bill Clinton in 1995, who was earlier chief of business and securities fraud prosecutions in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office. In 2011 he refused to approve the Securities and Exchange Commission's 285 million dollar settlement with Citigroup, calling the penalty "pocket change." In 2022 and 2023 he presided over the three consolidated suits against JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank arising from their banking for Jeffrey Epstein, including Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, which JPMorgan settled in 2023 for 75 million dollars.¹²³

Career

Rakoff graduated from Swarthmore College in 1964, received an M.Phil. from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1966, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1969. He clerked for Judge Abraham Freedman of the Third Circuit from 1969 to 1970, practiced in New York from 1970 to 1972, and was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1973 to 1980, the last two years as chief of business and securities fraud prosecutions. He returned to private practice from 1980 to 1995. Clinton nominated him on October 11, 1995 to the seat vacated by David N. Edelstein; he was confirmed on December 29, 1995, commissioned on January 4, 1996, and took senior status on December 31, 2010.¹

In a case brought by a Drug Enforcement Administration sting in which agents posed as representatives of the FARC, Rakoff presided over the trial of the Syrian arms dealer Monzer Al-Kassar, who was convicted in November 2008 of conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization and to kill Americans, and sentenced on February 24, 2009 to 30 years.⁴

SEC v. Citigroup

On November 28, 2011 Rakoff rejected a proposed consent judgment under which Citigroup Global Markets would pay 285 million dollars to settle the SEC's October 19, 2011 suit accusing it of "a substantial securities fraud" in connection with mortgage-backed securities (827 F. Supp. 2d 328). He held that the proposed judgment was "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest," wrote that the SEC's "long-standing policy" of letting defendants settle without admitting the allegations was "hallowed by history, but not by reason," wrote that the proposed penalty was "pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup," and that an application of judicial power "that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous." He tied the case to the related SEC v. Stoker, "currently scheduled to commence trial on July 16, 2012." The SEC and Citigroup appealed, and a Second Circuit panel decided the appeals on June 4, 2014 (752 F.3d 285); Judge Raymond J. Lohier Jr., concurring, wrote that the majority had made clear that district courts assessing a proposed consent decree "should consider principally four factors."²⁵

The Epstein Bank Cases

On December 27, 2022 the Government of the United States Virgin Islands sued JPMorgan before Rakoff; on December 29 he consolidated the case "for all pretrial purposes" with the suits of a pseudonymous victim against Deutsche Bank (22-cv-10018) and JPMorgan (22-cv-10019), under one case management plan. He decided the motions to dismiss in all three cases in a single "bottom-line" order on March 20, 2023, explained on May 1; refused on April 10 to sever the bank's third-party claims against its former executive Jes Staley; admitted Paul Cassell pro hac vice for the victims on May 2; and on August 18, 2023 denied Staley's motion to dismiss "in its entirety."³

In June 2023 the territory's counsel, Motley Rice, wrote to Rakoff that JPMorgan's late-produced internal review, "Project Jeep," confirmed "more than four pages of Epstein referrals to JPMorgan," including Bill Gates and Peter Mandelson, and asked to recall chief executive Jamie Dimon. In August 2023 Rakoff ordered production of records concerning newly identified women Epstein had paid, but denied the request "to compel production of all documents and information concerning 'Project Jeep' or other investigations by JPMorgan that occurred after Epstein's 2019 arrest."⁶

JPMorgan settled the victims' class for 290 million dollars in June 2023, which Rakoff approved in November, and the territory for 75 million dollars in September 2023. Rakoff closed the territory's case on October 18, 2023. On November 22 he ordered JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank to pay the Epstein Victims' Compensation Program 563,365.51 dollars and 187,788.50 dollars respectively for the cost of complying with their subpoenas. On June 28, 2024 he denied a motion by six Jane Does to intervene in the closed case for access to sealed filings, and on motions by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal he unsealed parts of the summary judgment record on July 30, 2024 and October 24, 2025.³⁷