Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick faces questions about past contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A federal judge has sanctioned the law firm representing a woman in a lawsuit accusing billionaire Leon Black of sexual assault linked to late disgraced financierJeffrey Epsteinbut stopped short of throwing the case out entirely.
In a 76-page opinion and order, U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke found that attorney Jeanne Christensen and her firm, Wigdor LLP, engaged in "serious, sanctionable misconduct" during the litigation.
Clarke wrote that Christensen "lied repeatedly" to the court and opposing counsel about a related case and directed her client to delete a potentially relevant social media account.
"In light of the serious and varied misconduct ... the Court strongly considered granting the case-terminating sanctions Defendant requests in this matter," Clarke wrote. "However, the Court ultimately concludes that lesser sanctions can address the misconduct."
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Leon Black, then chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2018.(Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images, File)
The lawsuit alleges that Black, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, raped a 16-year-old girl in New York City in 2002. The accuser, identified as "Jane Doe," claims she was previously abused and groomed by Epstein andGhislaine Maxwell, who she says trafficked her to other men, including Black.
The judge also raised concerns about the plaintiff’s evidence, finding that some materials — including sonogram images contained in personal journals — had been falsified. Clarke did not rule on the underlying allegations but determined that certain supporting evidence could not be relied upon.
The plaintiff has alleged she was subjected to an "impregnation game" involving Epstein and others, claiming she was forced to carry pregnancies resulting fromsexual abuse.
"According to Plaintiff, she was forced to carry out pregnancies that resulted from the men who sexually abused her, andMaxwell took photographs ofPlaintiff’s body as it changed during her pregnancies," Clarke wrote.
"Plaintiff testified that all of the sonograms in the journals were hers from several abuse-related pregnancies, including some pregnancies that came to term and others that were terminated."
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Leon Black, then chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management LLC, in New York in 2019.(Demetrius Freeman/Bloomberg via Getty Images, File)
The judge ordered Christensen to file the misconduct ruling in all of her federal cases in the Second Circuit for the next year and for five years in any case in which sanctions are sought against her, her firm or her client. Wigdor LLP was also ordered to pay the defendant'slegal feestied to the sanctions motion, and the plaintiff is barred from using journals containing falsified sonograms.
