Did Timothy Mellon have ties to Jeffrey Epstein? The BNY Mellon lawsuit row explained

The New York Times on Saturday revealed that the billionaire who donated $130 million to the government to keep the military funded during the lockdown is Timothy Mellon, the octogenarian heir of the Mellon banking family fortune. Trump earlier called the donor “a friend” and a “patriot” – but the name was not revealed until the NYT report.

But, with the revelation, certain misleading claims are going viral, especially in relation to a lawsuit filed by a woman against the Bank of New York Mellon, a publicly owned company formed over the merger of Mellon Financial, formerly owned by the Mellon family, and the BNY, for allegedly helping with the operations of disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein. Filed on October 16, the lawsuit is the latest in a series of allegations against major US banks over their alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s operations.

This lawsuit has resurfaced amid the news of Mellon donating $130 million to help with the payment of military salaries amid the government shutdown. However, the links are unfounded as neither Timothy Mellon nor the Mellon family has any ties to BNY Mellon.

After the merger of Mellon Financial and the Bank of New York in 2017, BNY Mellon became a publicly traded company, and the Mellon family did not have any stakes in the newly formed entity. Institutional investors like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street hold controlling stakes at BNY Mellon.

Notably, despite social media speculating that Mellon could have links to Epstein, there is no known association between him and the deceased sexual offender.

This story is being updated.