Billionaire investor Leon Black plans to tell members of Congress on Friday that he did not know the extent of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes – and that he himself by no means abused women or had sexual relations with minors, in accordance to a duplicate of his opening remarks shared by his authorized workforce.
“I have never abused a woman. I have never been with an underage woman. I have never engaged in sex trafficking,” Black plans to tell members of the House Oversight Committee, in accordance to his opening remarks. “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.”
Black’s voluntary look earlier than the panel marks the sixteenth closed-door interview that the committee has carried out in its bipartisan investigation into Epstein. He is one in all quite a few influential and rich people whose previous relationships with Epstein have come below heightened scrutiny for the reason that Justice Department’s launch of tens of millions of Epstein recordsdata.
On Friday, Black will try to present empathy for Epstein survivors, saying: “I feel terrible for Epstein’s victims,” his opening remarks say. He may even say that whereas he was conscious of Epstein’s conviction in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor, he believed Epstein’s clarification on the time.
“I want to state clearly that I did not know about this nefarious activity until Epstein was charged with trafficking in July 2019,” Black’s opening assertion says. “I did know that Epstein pleaded guilty in June 2008 to state charges relating to prostitution involving a minor. Epstein told me that it was 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.”
Black’s assertion to lawmakers on Friday echoes what he has beforehand said – that “with the benefit of hindsight,” he regretted having “any involvement” with Epstein. In 2021, he stepped away from operating non-public fairness agency Apollo Global Management amid scrutiny over their ties.
Black expressed regret for his dealings with the late convicted intercourse offender in a letter to buyers in 2020 within the wake of a report from the New York Times that included allegations that the 2 males “often socialized and dined together” and their enterprise relationship concerned funds for consulting and different companies.
Prior to his choice to step away from the agency, Apollo introduced that an inner investigation into Black’s ties to Epstein discovered no wrongdoing. That probe, which concerned greater than 60,000 paperwork and interviewing over 20 individuals, discovered Black’s funds to Epstein totaled $158 million from 2012 to 2017.
Black is among the many uncommon witnesses to come earlier than the panel from the late convicted intercourse offender’s orbit who has been accused by women of abuse in reference to Epstein.
According to a NCS review in April of the Department of Justice’s Epstein recordsdata, one lady spoke to the FBI and alleged she’d been abused by Black, saying he began “becoming sexual” throughout a therapeutic massage Epstein had directed her to give earlier than she ran out of the room.
Separately, a girl instructed the FBI in 2020 that Black raped her about six years earlier. She did not say Epstein launched her to Black however mentioned going with Black to Epstein’s house in Florida, the place she stated she was instructed to have intercourse with Epstein.
An legal professional for Black instructed NCS in an announcement on the time, “Mr. Black has never abused, assaulted, or raped any girl or woman and the idea of doing so is repulsive and reprehensible to him. Such allegations against him are completely false.”
To date, solely Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell have been charged within the US with intercourse trafficking in his case, and FBI Director Kash Patel has said there’s “no credible information” that Epstein trafficked his victims to others.
Black has been accused of rape in three lawsuits — and has denied the allegations in every case. A state decide dismissed one swimsuit and the plaintiff in one other agreed to drop her swimsuit. Another stays pending, although the regulation agency representing the plaintiff withdrew from the case. Black plans to repeat his denial of the allegations in every case on Friday, in accordance to his opening assertion.
“To be clear, I categorically deny the baseless and fabricated allegations in that case and in the other two lawsuits that were filed against me and that have now been dismissed,” the assertion says.
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