Billionaire investor Leon Black can no longer pursue a racketeering suit against a former business partner, a corporate PR consultant, and an ex-lover who accused him of rape.
A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out Black’s 2022 complaint, with prejudice, noting that a district court judge last June “identified four major flaws” in the case.
Black’s argument that model Guzel Ganieva conspired with his Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris and Apollo PR rep Steven Rubenstein to destroy his personal and professional reputation was “nebulous and overtly conjectural,” U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote in his decision last June.
Leon Black (right) speaks at the the 2010 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.
Fred Prouser/Reuters
Ganieva in 2021 accused Black of raping her, which the 71-year-old Black—who was closely linked to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—denied publicly, claiming it to be a grand extortion plot, which prompted a subsequent defamation lawsuit from Ganieva. The following year, Black filed suit against Ganieva, Harris, Rubenstein, and Wigdor LLP, the firm representing Ganieva, claiming they had “orchestrated a conspiracy and enterprise” with the others to “take [him] down.”
He alleged the whole thing originated as “an attempted coup” by Harris to become Apollo’s CEO, and that when it didn’t happen, he “weaponiz[ed] Ms. Ganieva to assassinate his character and extort even more from him.” (Black eventually dropped his claim against Wigdor, which alleged the firm helped Ganieva disseminate false information about him.)
But Black’s claims “did not come close to knitting [the three] together in any solid or coherent way… let alone in a manner qualifying as a RICO predicate,” Engelmayer wrote last year.
He went on to dismantle Black’s arguments, one by one, for 63 pages.
Josh Harris speaks at the 2017 Milken Institute Global Conference.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Engelmayer’s decision was affirmed on Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, with prejudice. That is, Black’s case is now permanently dismissed.
Ganieva first accused Black of sexual assault in a series of tweets posted in March 2021. Black left Apollo five days later, claiming his wife and he were dealing with health issues. He later said in media interviews that he “foolishly had a consensual affair” with Ganieva, describing her as an extortionist.
“The truth is that I have been extorted by Ms. Ganieva for many years and I made substantial monetary payments to her, based on her threats to go public concerning our relationship, in an attempt to spare my family from public embarrassment,” Black said in a statement at the time.
Black has also been accused of sexual assault by another woman, Cheri Pierson, who said the private equity mogul raped her so brutally, she had difficulty urinating for weeks afterward. The alleged rape occurred at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, according to Pierson’s lawsuit, which was filed in November 2022.
Jeffrey Epstein’s former Upper East Side townhouse.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
In a statement issued Thursday, Ganieva’s lead attorney, Wigdor LLP’s Jeanne Christensen, expressed satisfaction with the court’s upholding of Engelmayer’s decision.
“In June, Judge Engelmayer correctly dismissed the lawsuit, rendering Black’s claims ‘glaringly deficient in fundamental respects,’” the statement said. “We believe Black’s claims against our law firm were baseless and filed in retaliation because we represent Guzel Ganieva in her first filed lawsuit against Black in which she alleges that Black sexually assaulted her for years and defamed her by falsely accusing her of extortion. Black’s attempt to silence Ms. Ganieva and Wigdor LLP for representing her have failed.”
In an emailed statement to The Daily Beast, Black’s lawyer, Susan Estrich, said, “This procedural ruling doesn’t change the indisputable facts that Ms. Ganieva extorted Mr. Black, broke her agreement with him about their consensual affair after pocketing $9.5 million under that agreement, and then defamed Mr. Black by making demonstrably false and allegations. We are confident that a review of the evidence in Mr. Black’s New York State Court suit, including the signed agreement and Ms. Ganieva’s own words, will expose her despicable claims as lies.”
Ganieva, via Christensen, declined to comment.
