Federal Judge Allows Epstein Survivors’ Claims Against FirstBank to Proceed (9/30/26)

About This Episode

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled that FirstBank Puerto Rico and its parent company, First BanCorp, must face most of a lawsuit accusing the bank of helping sustain Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation for more than two decades. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the bank’s effort to dismiss the central claim brought under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, allowing survivor Julia Molchonova to continue arguing that FirstBank knowingly benefited from participating in Epstein’s