Jennifer Sharkey, the ex- JPMorgan Chase wealth manager who claims she was fired in 2009 for raising red flags of fraud and money laundering about a bank client, was let go for a much simpler reason, her former boss testified.
"In the end, it was the fact she lied to me," Leslie Lassiter told jurors in Manhattan federal court Wednesday. "It’s hard to have somebody working for you who you can’t trust. That’s pretty fundamental in a bank."
Lassiter, a key witness for JPMorgan Chase in its defense of Sharkey’s whistleblower suit, said she was fired for lying when questioned about contacts with the representative of a different wealthy customer. The client’s office manager called to complain that Sharkey hadn’t returned her calls and to ask if the wealth manager was just "a phantom," according to Lassiter, who is one of three JPMorgan employees named as defendants in Sharkey’s suit, alongside the bank.
Lassiter said she assigned the client, referred to in the trial only as "Client H," to Sharkey, who’d been promoted from private banker to private wealth manager in 2008. Client H had about $25 million managed by the bank, she said. Lassiter told jurors she asked Sharkey at least a half dozen times whether she’d been in contact with Client H or his office, and that Sharkey gave her reassurances.
"‘Don’t worry, I’m on it. Taken care of,’" Sharkey said, according to Lassiter.
Lassiter said she then got a call from Client H’s office manager, known in the trial as "Manager T," who said she couldn’t get her calls returned by Sharkey. Manager T questioned whether Sharkey was a phantom and asked if she needed to pull her boss’s money out of JPMorgan Chase to get her attention, Lassiter testified.
Lassiter then discussed Manager T’s call with Sharkey, in a meeting on July 21, 2009. Sharkey admitted she’d never contacted Manager T, according to Lassiter.
Lassiter also faulted Sharkey for a "casual attitude" toward her work and her inability to wrap up required "Know Your Customer" processes on client accounts. Sharkey was fired Aug. 5.
Under questioning by Sharkey’s lawyer, Lassiter testified that Sharkey had been promoted to private wealth manager about a year before she was fired. Sharkey was responsible for bringing more than 50 new client relationships totaling more than $100 million in assets.
Lassiter took the stand Wednesday, after Sharkey spent the previous day testifying that the bank fired her not over Client H, but for raising red flags about "Client A," a diamond seller and founder of a telephone calling-card business whom she suspected of fraud and money laundering. Client A was later cleared through the "Know Your Customer" process and remains with the bank.
Sharkey told the jury of five women and three men on Tuesday that she was let go after telling superiors she planned to send out letters terminating the bank’s relationship with Client A, who had about $14 million under management.
"I was fired the next day," Sharkey said.
Sharkey claims JPMorgan Chase violated whistleblower protections in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act and is seeking back pay, compensation for her emotional distress and reinstatement to her job. The trial, which began Oct. 30 with jury selection, is expected to last about a week. It’s rare for a bank to go to trial on such allegations.
Lassiter is expected to complete her testimony on Thursday.
