WASHINGTON — “Please call Leon Black.”
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That phrase appears more than 300 times in theJeffrey Epsteininvestigative files released by the Justice Department, some sent in emailsto Epstein by his personal assistant. Black, for years a powerful billionaire Wall Street player, and Epstein had a business relationship stretching back decades.
“Leon, as you are well aware, there is little I won’t do for you or at least try to do as a friend,” Epstein wrote in one email to Black in 2014. “And a great deal that I have already done (both known and some things that will need to remain unknown.)”
Lawmakers are expected to press Black on Friday when he testifies before the House Oversight Committee investigating the federal government’s handling of the Epstein case. They are hoping to uncover more about the financial web Epstein wove that funded his sex trafficking operations and have said they believe Black may have played a role.
Theformer CEOof Apollo Global Managementis the latest in a line of America’s powerful ruling class, includingformer President Bill Clinton and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whohave gone before Congress to discuss their ties to the man who preyed on women for years.
Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, said in a statement to NBC News that Black had called for an independent investigation into his relationship with Epstein.
Estrich said a former federal prosecutor reviewed more than 60,000 documents and interviewed more than 20 people, including Black, as part of that investigationat the behest of Apollo,and found that Black had only paid Epstein for tax and real estate planning advice for his family office.
“The investigation further found that Epstein’s work had been vetted and approved by best-in-class law and accounting firms,” Estrich said in the statement. “It also found that he had no awareness of the criminal activities that led to Epstein’s arrest in 2019.”
Black has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct. He has said he deeply regrets “having had any involvement with him.”
“With the benefit of hindsight, working with him was a horrible mistake on my part,” he said in a statement when he stepped down from Apollo.
Black’sreputation has already been tarnishedby his longtime association with the wealthy sex offender. He was forced out of the company he co-founded in 2021, after Apollo revealed Black had paid Epstein hundreds of millions for financial advice from 2012 through 2017, arguing he did so despite knowing that Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in Florida in 2008.
Yet, since the document dump of millions of files, questions have only grown about Black’s financial dealings with Epstein,who died by suicide in his cell in 2019as he awaited a criminal trial in New York. His accompliceGhislaine Maxwellwas convicted in 2021 of federal sex trafficking charges.
The release of the Epstein fileshas prompted multiple investigationsoverseas as famous people and well-connected leaders around the globe were found to have associated with him. In the U.S., only New Mexico has launched a probe into thedealings on his secluded Zorro Ranch.
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