Leon Black, the billionaire New York investor who stepped down as CEO of Apollo Global Management over ties to billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was sued last year by a woman who claims he raped her when she was 16 at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2002.
New filings in the case by Black claim that the woman’s “years of social media activity” undermine her claims. Black’s lawyers argue that the allegations against Black are false.
A new document filed by Black on Wednesday argues that his accuser shouldn’t be allowed to amend her complaint to bring the case further against him. That file, which is heavily redacted due to the sensitive nature of the claims, refers to a previously unreported-on December filing that details some more allegations about the woman’s social media activity.
In a document accompanying Wednesday’s filing, Black’s lawyers asked the court to let them officially file the document with the current redactions.
But the woman suing him is challenging that and asking that the file be entered with fewer redactions.
Black has argued that the allegations against him are fabricated and that his accuser is a fabulist whose own family told private investigators that she had a history of making things up.
One section of the new filing refers to “praise and fond memories” shared by the plaintiff in 2020, which Black’s lawyers argue “paint a very different picture than the allegations of abuse and trafficking” the woman detailed in her complaint.
The section explaining these memories and praise is redacted.
The document filed in December details more of the allegations about the woman’s Twitter account.
Black’s lawyers claimed that his private investigators found the accuser deleted her Twitter account a few months before filing her lawsuit, but said they’re in possession of direct messages between the accuser and “third parties who have asked to remain anonymous.” They add, without any evidence, that these people are being quiet because they fear retaliation.
That file is heavily redacted too, and includes multi-line redacted references to tweets which Black’s lawyers argue contain “contradictory or plainly false claims regarding her origin story.”
The document also claimed that Black’s accuser posted on Twitter, spoke in Twitter Spaces, and sent messages over social media extensively in the 16 months prior to when the document was filed.
She’d “repeatedly publicly identified herself as an Epstein survivor, explained that she was trafficked by Epstein for two years as a child, used the hashtags [REDACTED] and connected with various Twitter users with larger followings who relayed her tweets detailing her alleged abuse to their followings.”
The document also discusses tweets Black’s accuser made around the time the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and claims that private investigators for Black spoke with Twitter users who told them that she frequently spoke about being trafficked and abused.
Due to the nature of the redactions, it’s difficult to tell what challenges to her credibility Black’s lawyers are attempting to make with her tweets.
Black stepped down from his lucrative finance gig in 2021 after an internal investigation found he paid over $150 million in fees to Jeffrey Epstein for vague tax planning services.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance currently has an open investigation into Black’s financial dealings with Epstein.
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