Billionaire Leon Black Explains Why He Gave Jeffrey Epstein ‘a Second Chance’ in Testimony Before Congress

In his testimony before Congress about his connections to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, June 26, billionaire financier Leon Black argued that he was duped by the late sex offender.

“I knew Epstein for 18 years before I paid him a dime. By the time I first paid Epstein in 2013, I knew him to possess an unrivaled network of relationships with individuals in finance, academia, science, politics, and more,” Black, who is the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, said in a prepared statement obtained in advance by The Guardian and other outlets.

“With the benefit of hindsight,” Black told the House committee on oversight and reform, “I now know, as does the world, that Epstein was engaged in horrific, sordid activities. I feel terrible for Epstein’s victims.”

“I did not know about this nefarious activity until Epstein was charged with trafficking in July 2019,” he argued, insisting that Epstein had explained away his 2008 guilty plea for procuring a minor for prostitution to an “isolated incident resulting from a fake ID.”

“Five years after his conviction, I gave Epstein a second chance, as did many others. I wish I had not,” the billionaire added.

The Department of Justice’s January 30 release of a tranche of documents related to Epstein exposed Black’s communications between 2013 and 2016 with the disgraced financier – and also included a document, seemingly prepared by a sex trafficking task force, which was labeled “PROMINENT NAMES.”

The list — which also includes President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and more public figures — details several accusations against Black.

The claims include allegations that Epstein told unidentified women to give Black, who was not wearing clothes, massages and perform oral sex and that Epstein joked about Black’s manhood. According to the document, another woman accused him of rape and threatening to “destroy her life.” None of the claims have been verified.

“Let me state unequivocally that I have never abused a woman. I have never been with an underage woman,” Black said in his remarks for Congress, per The Guardian. “I have never engaged in sex trafficking. I have never paid Epstein for access to women. I was never blackmailed by Epstein. I was not involved with, and had no knowledge of, any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.”

“I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde,” Black said in his remarks, per CNBC.

Black has repeatedly denied all allegations of misconduct and has never been charged by authorities for wrongdoing, despite sexual abuse lawsuits from three women.

In 2021, he was sued by a Russian model, who said he raped her and introduced her to Epstein. That suit was dismissed by the New York state appeals court because she signed an NDA and had “ratified” it by accepting $9 million from Black before filing the suit, per Reuters.

In 2023, another woman accused him of raping her at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse when she was 16, but that suit was eventually dropped and Black said he never met her, per NBC.

Another lawsuit filed by a woman who says Black raped her when she was a teen remains open, but in April, a New York judge imposed sanctions on the plaintiff for submitting “falsified images” from her journal and said the woman’s lawyer “lied repeatedly to the court,” according to The New York Times.

As In Touch previously reported, Black is also facing a class action suit filed by Apollo Global Management shareholders in March over his alleged connections with Epstein.

Multiple media reports about their connection caused share prices to plunge by the end of February, the March 2 complaint, which was obtained by In Touch, alleges.

“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s common shares,” the complaint reads, “Plaintiff and the other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages.”

In the legal papers, shareholders also claimed that “Epstein was heavily involved and frequently communicated with Apollo Global’s senior leadership in the 2010s” and Black and cofounder Marc Rowan repeatedly lied about it in regulatory filings in 2021 and 2022.

In a February press release, current Apollo president James C. Zelter pointed to an independent investigation conducted for the company in 2020 that found no evidence of impropriety in Black’s relationship with Epstein. “Neither Marc Rowan nor anyone else at Apollo (excluding Leon Black) had either a business or personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” he wrote.

The 74-year-old cofounder of Apollo stepped down from his company in 2021 after an independent review found that he had paid $158 million to Epstein between 2012 and 2017 for financial advice.

In his remarks to Congress on Friday, Black said that Epstein had told him that money was “tax-deductible, ’60-cent dollars’, which I only learned years later was not true,” per The Guardian‘s report. He added that Epstein also “failed to repay most of a $30m demand loan that I had made to him.”

“With hindsight, I now see that Epstein exaggerated, embellished, manipulated and outright lied – prolifically and without concern for me or my family,” Black said.

He concluded that he wishes he “had never met Epstein,” according to the outlet. “I regret ever doing business with him. My association with him, the frivolous but destructive litigation, the endless rumor mill, have created a toxic environment for my wife and family, which I deeply regret.”

Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.