Billionaire Leon Black sues rape accuser and law firm, alleging defamation and racketeering

NEW YORK, Oct. 28 (Reuters) – Billionaire investor Leon Black has escalated his battle against a former model who accused him of rape and filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing her and her law firm of libel and extortionate conspiracy .

In the complaint, attorneys for the former CEO of Apollo Global Management Inc (APO.N) accused Guzel Ganieva and the law firm Wigdor of being involved in a “criminal enterprise”, including through falsely linking Black with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein .

“Knowing that reputation is important to him and his world, they set out to destroy him and make him pay everything to stop,” said the complaint filed with the Manhattan Federal Court. “They plan to fill their own pockets with the results.”

Ganieva sued Black in a court in New York state in June on charges of rape and other ill-treatment, forced her to sign a nondisclosure agreement about their 6-1 / 2-year-old relationship in 2015, and defamed her by claiming she had tries to blackmail him.

“This is an obvious act of retaliation,” said Ganiva’s attorney Jeanne Christensen in an email about the lawsuit on Thursday. “We look forward to defending ourselves against these ridiculous allegations.”

Black, 70, has vigorously denied claims made by Ganieva, with whom he had what he now calls what he now calls an “unfortunate” consensual relationship from 2008-2014.

These claims included that Black tried to arrange Ganieva, now in her late 30s, to have sex with Epstein in 2008.

Black said he paid Ganieva $ 100,000 a month for several years to keep from talking about their relationship after she tried to extort $ 100 million from him. Those payments were halted after Ganieva tweeted about Black in March.

In the state case, Black sued Ganieva for defamation but dropped the lawsuit as his attorney said he wanted to focus on his defense.

Black recently strengthened its legal team, adding John Quinn, a namesake partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, and Susan Estrich, whose clients include former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes.

“There’s really no reason Mr. Black should defend himself,” said Estrich, who said she had known Black since she graduated from Dartmouth College in the 1970s, in an interview. “Private consensual behavior by adults is not a matter of the law. Blackmail and defamation are a matter of the law.”

Black has publicly regretted his involvement in Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Earlier this year, Black resigned from Apollo after an outside independent review found he paid Epstein $ 158 million in tax and estate planning despite not being involved in Epstein’s criminal activities.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jane Wardell

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