Leon Black gave Jeffrey Epstein some huge cash. Between 2012 and 2017, the billionaire private-equity investor paid the convicted intercourse offender $158 million for tax and property recommendation — way over the going price on Wall Road. Whereas dealing with scrutiny for these funds in 2021, Black resigned from his place main the agency he based, Apollo International Administration, and his seat on the Museum of Fashionable Artwork’s board, citing “well being points.” Since then, he’s largely stayed out of the general public eye— save for an look in Could at Madison Sq. Backyard through the New York Knicks championship run. However he was again within the highlight on Friday in Washington to face questions on his relationship with Epstein.
Black appeared earlier than the Home Oversight Committee as a part of its ongoing investigation into the accused intercourse trafficker and his elite connections. “Of all of the witnesses which have come to this point, this one has the potential to be essentially the most groundbreaking deposition,” Oversight chair James Comer mentioned shortly earlier than the listening to started.
The deposition was held behind closed doorways, although the committee will launch a transcript within the coming weeks. However a written assertion from Black, who has at all times denied information of Epstein’s trafficking, offers a window into his explanations to the Home members. To this point, the outcomes of the interview recommend it didn’t go properly. Comer introduced shortly after the listening to that he had subpoenaed Black on the spot and that he will probably be returning on July 16 to reply extra questions.
“I’ve by no means paid Epstein for entry to ladies. I used to be by no means blackmailed by Epstein,” Black mentioned in a written assertion. “I used to be not concerned with, and had no information of, any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.” He says that he first met Epstein within the early Nineteen Nineties — again when he was an in depth good friend of Donald Trump’s and serving on the board of Rockefeller College. He mentioned he knew Epstein for shut to twenty years “earlier than I paid him a dime.” In 2013 — 4 years after Epstein’s launch from jail — Black began paying him for “bona fide recommendation” on his taxes and his property, citing his “outstanding acumen” in accounting. As for the entire going-to-prison-for-soliciting-a-minor factor, Black mentioned he thought it was an “remoted incident.” In the long run, Black says he was swindled of $60 million in charges after Epstein lied to him and informed him they had been tax deductible.
“I now know, as does the world, that Epstein was engaged in horrific, sordid actions,” Black mentioned, including, “I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde.”
Now, if solely there have been a large database of fabric launched by the federal authorities that might present whether or not Black paid Epstein for extra than simply monetary recommendation.
Because it seems, the New York Instances dug into the Epstein recordsdata in March, discovering emails between Black and Epstein discussing find out how to obscure tens of millions of {dollars}’ price of funds to ladies Black allegedly had affairs with. The emails present Epstein introducing Black to younger ladies — together with three ladies who later claimed Black sexually assaulted them, which he has denied.
In a single occasion in 2015, Epstein recommended Black’s prime adviser, Brad Karp, on find out how to preserve one in all Black’s alleged girlfriends quiet as she pushed him for a $100 million hush cost. Epstein and Karp exchanged emails about technique because the non-public investigator managed to tape a collection of lunches between Black and his alleged mistress with the aim of decreasing her calls for and getting her to say on tape that she was by no means assaulted by Black. (The Epstein recordsdata include the transcripts.) In October 2015, Black paid her $18 million. The identical month, Black made a brand new cost to Epstein for $20 million. Epstein’s attorneys say that the funds had been strictly for financials offers and that the emails “clarify that Mr. Epstein embellished, exaggerated and lied about Mr. Black.” However one Epstein electronic mail from 2017 point out he could have performed a distinct function in Black’s life. There, Epstein wrote to Black about “saving you from your self.”
Whether or not or not Black knew the Mr. Hyde aspect of Epstein, he did inform Puck in 2024 that his former adviser was “like a Bond villain.” As for the “remoted incident” of Epstein’s arrest, communications from that point recommend a distinct story. When Epstein was launched from jail in 2011, emails present that an assistant informed Epstein that Black wished to sing him “Blissful Days Are Right here Once more.” He replied, “If i’ve to hear i’d quite be in jail.”
Simply after the interview ended early Friday afternoon, Oversight members got here out of the deposition room fuming. “Leon Black was boastful. He was smug,” mentioned Democratic Consultant Yassamin Ansari. “He refused to reply the questions, however on the identical time he was emphasizing how he was being clear as a result of this was voluntary.” Each she and Consultant Comer, a Republican, mentioned that Black refused to reply questions relating to the NDAs he had signed with ladies allegedly linked to Epstein. He gave so many nonanswers that Comer subpoenaed him on the spot for a date on July 16. On his stroll via the corridor, a reporter requested him, “Mr. Black, why would you not reply any questions?” He didn’t reply the query.
