Grinches at JPMorgan doubled down on their refusal to pay a pension to the widow of a former employee who has been fighting the financial giant for money for more than a decade, the Post has learned.
Elaine Silverberg, 73, has pleaded with the bank run by Jamie Dimon to hand over her $331-a-week pension to her husband Mel in a dispute over 13 years of missing documentation, The Post exclusively reported last month.
But America’s largest lender has repeatedly denied its claim — and dug in again this holiday season, a source told The Post on Friday.
An insider at the global banking powerhouse, whose profits topped $12 billion in the third quarter of this year amid rising investment banking fees, said there had been “no change” in its Scrooge-like attitude that Silverberg is not entitled to a cent. .
Sources at the Wall Street titan insisted the bank had conducted “a full and fair review” of its case “multiple times”.
Silverberg’s husband, Mel, died suddenly of multiple organ failure at the age of 43 in 1988.
He had worked for a decade as a systems analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank until 1979. Chase Manhattan went on to merge with JPMorgan in 2000.
JPMorgan Chase admits her husband earned a retirement package before he left the bank. But the bank also said it failed to complete a form that elected her to receive his pension after his death.
Ronald Reagan’s administration passed the Retirement Equity Act in 1984, so spouses like Elaine would automatically benefit if their loved ones died.
“Based on a change in the law after he left the firm, he could have made an election for a survivor benefit. The firm has no record that he made those choices,” the JPMorgan insider said.
Mel’s fully stocked cash pile is currently worth about $53,000, Silverberg said.
“I can’t find a lawyer who would want to sue JPMorgan Chase for the amount of money this case would generate for them,” she said. I just have to hope for their goodwill in the spirit of the season.”
A JPMorgan spokesman declined to comment.
Silverberg, who was just 37 at the time of Mel’s death and raised their three children alone, said the global banking powerhouse gave her the cold shoulder after the Post story last month.
“I’m very disappointed that no one responded in any way. No one got back to me, no one gave me any kind of explanation. It has been deafening silence,” explained the retired government administrator.
“I’ve always thought that if Jamie Dimon found out about this, he would want to do the right thing and honor the pension,” she added, referring to the 68-year-old Queens native who was CEO of JP Morgan since 2006 and has grabbed. to $36 million last year.
The grandmother-of-eight described how Mel would volunteer to work nights and weekends while she looked after their young family.
“He was a team player when they needed him. He was always there for them, she said.
The bank claims it wrote to Mel on three separate occasions after he resigned, but Elaine says none of that correspondence ever reached the family home.
She said pension managers can only dig up documentation they say proves they contacted Mel in 1990 – two years after he died.
“They never provided any evidence that they had tried to reach him three times,” she told the Post.
Silverberg, who once recruited New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Rep. Eliot Engel to fight her corner, asked the Wall Street giant to step down before the upcoming holiday season.
“It’s the time of year that companies are very generous to their employees and their staff and their senior management and maybe they’ll decide this is the time to do the right thing,” she said. “They are punishing my family based on the technique they created.”
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