The former Barclays boss Jes Staley has denied having sex with a woman dressed as Snow White, after being questioned about an infamous email exchange about Disney princesses with Jeffrey Epstein.
The comments were detailed in newly released transcripts from a closed-door interview last month with US lawmakers as part of their investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in August ۲۰۱۹ while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.
In the email exchange on ۹ and ۱۰ July ۲۰۱۰ Staley and Epstein referred to Disney princesses. In those messages, the details of which have been circulating in the media since ۲۰۲۱, Staley tells Epstein: “That was fun. Say hi to Snow White.”
Epstein then asks: “What character would you like next?” to which Staley replied: “Beauty and the Beast.” Epstein responded: “Well one side is availble [sic].”
During his congressional testimony, Staley, who spent more than three decades at JPMorgan Chase before joining Barclays in ۲۰۱۵, was asked: “Did you ever have sex with a young woman in a Snow White costume?
“No, I did not,” Staley said.
Lawmakers then questioned Staley about another email, sent to Epstein by an unnamed individual on ۱۰ July ۲۰۱۰ and which said: “the snow white was f..ed twice as soon as she put her costume))”. Epstein appears to have asked an unnamed individual to buy a Snow White costume weeks before those exchanges, on ۲۰ June ۲۰۱۰.
“Why would this young woman have sent this email to Mr. Epstein if the two of you had not had sex while she was wearing a Snow White costume and if Mr. Epstein had not instructed her to do so?” a congressional representative, whose name has been redacted from the transcript, asked.
“I have no idea who else she was with. I – it has nothing to do with me, though,” Staley said. When pressed further, he said: “I may have seen her in apartment [sic] and prompted that email. But I was not with a person dressed as Snow White outside of potentially crossing at his apartment.”
The representative asked: “So you may have seen her in his apartment, later emailed Mr. Epstein and said, ‘That was fun,’ but it was not because you had sex with her?”
“That’s correct,” Staley said.
In the transcript, Staley is then asked: “Would you agree that’s a pretty incredible coincidence, that you email him on July ۹th, saying, ‘That was fun, say hi to Snow White,’ and then [the unnamed individual] emails him the next day, reporting back on something that just didn’t have anything to do with you?”
“Sure. Why not?” Staley said.
“That’s pretty hard to believe,” the representative said.
The former banker was also asked whether he and Epstein used “Disney princesses as code names for selecting women for sexual encounters”, to which Staley replied, “No.”
Staley’s reputation has been tarnished as a result of his well-documented friendship with the child sex offender.
Staley originally met Epstein in ۲۰۰۰ after he became head of JP Morgan’s private bank, where Epstein was a client. Staley later took over as chief executive of Barclays, one of the UK’s largest banks, in ۲۰۱۵ but was forced to step down in ۲۰۲۱ after City regulators opened an investigation into his relationship with Epstein.
Staley was eventually banned from taking any job in the UK’s financial sector for playing down those ties. He tried and failed to overturn that banking ban last year in a court battle that revealed intimate details of the pair’s friendship.
