Chair of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, R-Ky., speaks to the press before a closed-door interview with Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates on June 10. The committee interviewed billionaire investor Leon Black Friday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black told a Congressional committee Friday that he never abused women and that he didn’t know the extent of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, a copy of his opening remarks to the House Oversight Committee said.
Black’s legal team shared the remarks to the media before his voluntary testimony to the committee.
“I have never abused a woman. I have never been with an underage woman. I have never engaged in sex trafficking,” Black said. “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.”
“I feel terrible for Epstein’s victims,” Black said. He said he was aware of Epstein’s guilty plea in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor but that he believed Epstein’s explanation.
“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 statement said. “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.”
House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters before the testimony that “a couple of things in the opening statement that concern me,” and that the committee has questions for Black. He said the interview has “the potential to be the most groundbreaking deposition in my opinion.”
Comer said he’s “pretty confident” that Black has signed a lot of non-disclosure agreements with survivors, CNN reported.
Black said in his statement that Epstein swindled him out of millions, CNBC reported.
Black left Apollo in 2021 when allegations about his ties to Epstein came to light.
In the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice, a woman told the FBI that she’d been abused by Black. She said he started “becoming sexual” during a massage Epstein had told her to give, then she fled the room.
Another woman told the FBI in 2020 that Black raped her about six years earlier.
She talked about going with Black to Epstein’s home in Florida, where she said she was told to have sex with Epstein.
An attorney for Black told CNN: “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.”
Three women have sued Black alleging rape, and he has denied each allegation. A judge dismissed one suit, a plaintiff agreed to drop another suit and the law firm withdrew representation in a third, though the case is still pending.
In his opening statement, Black told lawmakers that the Epstein files “added fuel to the burning conspiracies and falsities.”
“I don’t understand why people — including members of this committee — would accept baseless speculation about me without regard to the facts and spin such ugly and vicious narratives that are demonstrably false,” he said. “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 media raced to cover these sensational allegations, taking them at face value without conducting any investigation or undertaking even minimal diligence,” Black said. “As a result of this torrent of lies and misrepresentations, I have received death threats, and my family now feels unsafe. For the first time in my life, I’ve had to deploy a bodyguard.”
