He may be the darling of Wall Street and a hero in Washington, but for a brief moment JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon was also a fugitive in Atlanta in a dispute over an illegal tire dump.
Dimon, who is known for having the ear of President Obama, allegedly had an arrest warrant issued in his name after earlier this month missing a court hearing in connection with the dumping charges.
The flap started when the city of Atlanta decided to go after the owner of 1462 Memorial Drive for failing to clean up thousands of old tires and other debris that had piled up on the property, located across from a park in the southeastern part of the city.
According to Atlanta City Solicitor Raines Carter, local officials conducted an investigation and identified JPMorgan as “having an ownership interest” in the property. When a citation for the dumping violation was issued, Raines said it included both the name of the bank and its CEO, Dimon.
A hearing in Atlanta’s municipal court was scheduled for Feb. 18 for the bank, and apparently Dimon, to answer the charges. But no one showed up. That’s when the court decided to issue a failure-to-appear warrant.
Typically such warrants include the name of the person on the citation, though Carter said that wasn’t the case in this matter.
“The citation had the name of the corporation, JPMor- gan Chase bank, and the name of the CEO, Jamie Dimon, but the warrant for failure-to-appear did not have his name personally,” Carter told The Post in a telephone interview.
The Atlanta official stressed that the city never planned to seek the arrest of Dimon, and that his involvement in the matter was being taken out of context. News of the tussle between the bank and the city was first reported by CBS affiliate WGNX in Atlanta.
Nevertheless, the warrant got the bank’s attention, and it retained Alston & Bird — Atlanta’s second-biggest law firm — to investigate the matter.
According to sources familiar with the case, a lawyer from Alston & Bird held a conference call yesterday with James Shelby, commissioner of Atlanta’s Department of Planning and Community Development.
JPMorgan spokesman Joseph Evangelisti said the issue has been resolved.
“A local judge canceled the warrant [yesterday],” he said, adding the property’s title shows “our company does not own the property.”
An official with the department agreed that the warrant had been dropped, but denied the bank is off the hook with respect to owning the property.
The official added the city is still investigating who owns the dumping ground because they are hell-bent on getting someone to clean up the mess.
“We have a very serious code violation down here,” said Carter, who described the site as “an illegal dump site with thousands of old tires and other debris.
“The condition of it is pretty horrible” he said.