JPMorgan chief Dimon meets with Justice Department The company is preparing a new offer, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Attorney General Eric Holder has taken a direct hand in the negotiations and, in an unusual move, held a 50-minute meeting with JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon on Thursday. The "civil" encounter included a discussion of whether the bank could avoid criminal prosecution if it paid the fine and whether it would have to admit guilt. Discussions also covered whether a portion of the funds, perhaps $4 billion, could be used to provide relief for consumers. Even at $11 billion or more, the bank would be paying just a fraction of the damage it wreaked on mortgage investors, government agencies and homeowners. And the deal may ensure that no senior executives would go to jail for the reckless behavior that led to the housing crash and ensuing economic recession. But a historic deal with Justice could put pressure on other Wall Street firms to follow suit and bolster the legacy of Holder, who just months ago was criticized for saying banks had become too big to prosecute. Since word of the deal leaked out Tuesday, JPMorgan's stock has been rising. Asked about the meeting at an unrelated press conference, Holder declined to discuss details, but acknowledged meeting with representatives of the company. "I don't really want to get into the nature of the conversations, the discussions that we had," Holder said. But it "is a priority for this Justice Department to hold accountable people who would manipulate companies, who would manipulate our financial markets for their own customers" benefit or for the benefit of the companies." Talks between the Justice Department and JPMorgan have been ongoing for months but began to heat up this week as federal prosecutors in California were preparing to announce civil charges against JPMorgan related to the sale of mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2007. A person familiar with the negotiations said JPMorgan offered the Justice Department more than $3 billion Tuesday to put the cases to rest. Federal prosecutors wanted more, and by Wednesday a deal for an $11 billion settlement - $7 billion in cash and $4 billion in relief to consumers - was under consideration. Although Justice is taking the lead in the discussions, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said state authorities have an important seat at the table. The full scope of the deal remains unclear, but it might include an agreement to end a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in October over shoddy mortgage securities, as well as similar federal probes, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "We have brought a substantial number of those kinds of cases over the past few years," Holder said. We have matters that are under investigation and I expect we will be making further announcements in the coming weeks and months. The Justice Department probe of JPMorgan is part of a larger government effort to hold banks accountable for the haphazard packaging and selling of mortgage bonds that nearly toppled the economy. Investigations have ramped up under the Obama administration's federal mortgage task force - a team of federal and state attorneys assembled in 2009 to go after crimes related to the financial crisis. In January 2012, the task force launched a working group to investigate misconduct in the mortgage-backed securities market. Since then, the group, led by Schneiderman, has filed cases against Credit Suisse and Bank of America, accusing them of misleading investors about the quality of the securities they sold.