Leon Black Agreed to Pay $62.5 Million to Settle Epstein-Related Claims

The billionaire investor Leon Black agreed to pay $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands in January to be launched from any potential claims arising out of the territory’s three-year investigation into the intercourse trafficking operation of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, in response to a replica of the settlement settlement.

The beforehand undisclosed settlement got here after the Virgin Islands reached a $105 million deal in November with Mr. Epstein’s property. The subsequent month, the territory sued JPMorgan Chase in federal court docket over the financial institution’s 15-year relationship with Mr. Epstein, a registered intercourse offender who killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019.

The Virgin Islands authorities produced its settlement settlement with Mr. Black in response to a public data request by The New York Times. In January, representatives of the 2 events held a non-public mediation session to settle claims, in response to one other doc reviewed by The Times. The $62.5 million settlement adopted that session. Mr. Black agreed to pay in money, in accordance the settlement doc.

The settlement reveals the extent to which Mr. Black, as soon as a titan of the personal fairness trade, has gone to restrict scrutiny of his decades-long social and enterprise ties to Mr. Epstein. Those dealings, together with the revelation that he paid $158 million to Mr. Epstein for tax and property planning companies, had grow to be a supply of embarrassment for Mr. Black within the years after Mr. Epstein’s demise.

Mr. Black, 71, was compelled to step down in early 2021 as chairman and chief govt of Apollo Global Management, the enormous personal fairness agency he co-founded in 1990. A serious artwork collector who made news for his $120 million buy of a model of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” Mr. Black additionally stepped down as chairman of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The four-page settlement stated nothing in it needs to be construed as an “admission of liability” by Mr. Black.

Venetia H. Velazquez, a lawyer with the Virgin Islands lawyer common’s workplace, which negotiated the settlement, stated, “For the past several years, the Virgin Islands Department of Justice has made it a priority to support human trafficking victims and to enforce the law to prevent and deter human trafficking.”

Whit Clay, a spokesman for Mr. Black, stated: “Mr. Black engaged and made payments to Jeffrey Epstein for legitimate financial advisory services, which, based on everything now known, he very much regrets. Consistent with settlements of other major U.S. banks, Mr. Black resolved the U.S.V.I.’s potential claims arising out of the unintended consequences of those payments. There is no suggestion in the U.S.V.I. settlement that Mr. Black was aware of or participated in any misconduct.”

The settlement occurred after a scheduled two-day mediation attended by legal professionals for Mr. Black and the Virgin Islands, in addition to a plaintiffs’ lawyer who had represented a lot of Mr. Epstein’s victims, in response to the doc reviewed by The Times.

Brad Edwards, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, stated he was “not at liberty to discuss the topic.”

Mr. Epstein killed himself in August 2019 whereas being held in federal custody in Manhattan on intercourse trafficking costs. Lawyers for Mr. Epstein’s victims have stated at the least 200 ladies — a lot of them youngsters on the time — have been sexually abused by Mr. Epstein at his personal island residence within the Virgin Islands, in addition to his houses in Manhattan, Florida and elsewhere.

Some victims of Mr. Epstein who had acquired settlements immediately from his property have been granted permission by the property’s executors to pursue claims in opposition to a handful of males who had socialized with Mr. Epstein, in response to an individual with data of the matter. Mr. Black was a kind of males, the particular person stated.

The settlement with the Virgin Islands didn’t cowl claims anybody else may need in opposition to Mr. Black. But the settlement itself couldn’t be used as “evidence of wrongdoing by Black,” the doc stated.

The Virgin Islands’ investigation of Mr. Black arose from an inquiry that led to the $105 million settlement with Mr. Epstein’s property and the territory’s pending lawsuit in opposition to JPMorgan Chase. The territory had been weighing a go well with that will have accused Mr. Black of facilitating Mr. Epstein’s intercourse trafficking operation by paying massive sums of cash to Southern Trust, which was certainly one of Mr. Epstein’s important firms within the Virgin Islands, stated two folks briefed on the matter.

Mr. Black’s determination to step down at Apollo adopted an article in The Times that reported his ties to Mr. Epstein have been extra in depth than beforehand recognized. Apollo subsequently employed the regulation agency Dechert to research Mr. Black’s relationship with Mr. Epstein. Dechert cleared Mr. Black of any wrongdoing. But the regulation agency discovered Mr. Black had paid $158 million to Southern Trust and likewise supplied the enterprise with a $30 million mortgage.

In its report, Dechert famous that the compensation paid by Mr. Black to Mr. Epstein, a school dropout, “far exceeded any amounts” paid to his different skilled advisers.

Planning for the mediation session with Mr. Black started in December whereas Denise N. George was nonetheless lawyer common of the Virgin Islands. But she was fired on New Year’s Eve by the governor of the U.S. territory — Albert Bryan Jr. — simply days after her workplace sued JPMorgan.

In its lawsuit in opposition to JPMorgan, the Virgin Islands claims that the nation’s largest financial institution turned a blind eye to Mr. Epstein’s trafficking of teenage ladies and younger ladies for intercourse. It is searching for $190 million in penalties.

JPMorgan, which lately reached a $290 million settlement with Mr. Epstein’s victims on comparable grounds, is opposing the lawsuit filed by the Virgin Islands. The financial institution claims the territory shouldn’t be entitled to any cash from it as a result of authorities officers did little to discourage Mr. Epstein’s actions.

In 2013, JPMorgan dropped Mr. Epstein as a buyer, after years of crimson flags raised by financial institution compliance staff about it doing enterprise with a registered intercourse offender, in response to court docket filings within the lawsuit.

But different paperwork reviewed by The Times present that a number of financial institution staff continued to speak to Mr. Epstein after 2013 due to his position as a tax adviser to Mr. Black, who had additionally been a buyer of JPMorgan’s personal financial institution. These paperwork additionally present that the choice to proceed to work with Mr. Epstein as a result of he was Mr. Black’s adviser was accredited by high executives on the financial institution.

Ms. Velazquez stated in her assertion, “Unlike any single individual, JPMorgan had detailed and comprehensive financial data on Epstein’s activities and a legal obligation to share that information with law enforcement.”

A JPMorgan spokesman wasn’t out there for remark.

Some of the settlement cash will go towards psychological well being applications and to fight intercourse trafficking on the Virgin Islands, the territory’s lawyer common’s workplace stated.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Maureen Farrell contributed to this report.