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Lawyers for Leon Black, the billionaire investor who has been accused in a civil lawsuit of raping a teenage girl inside Jeffrey Epstein’s New York townhouse in 2002, reached out to a powerful federal judge in 2024 to raise doubts about the alleged victim’s claims, a Guardian investigation has found.

The move set off a months-long court proceeding, which was conducted outside public view and led the US district judge Jed Rakoff to reverse a $2.5m award that had been granted to the alleged victim in a separate Epstein-related class action lawsuit, according to court records. She was later given a much smaller settlement in the class action case.

Jane Doe, as she is known in court filings, has claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and raped by Black when she was a teenager more than two decades ago.

The Guardian’s investigation is revealing new details about the private communications in Black’s legal campaign, which undermined Doe in her civil lawsuit against the Wall Street billionaire.

In a recent court order, Doe faced a significant setback when Jessica Clarke – the federal judge presiding over her civil lawsuit against Black – sanctioned Doe and her former lawyer for “serious, sanctionable misconduct in this case”. Judge Clarke said Doe’s former lawyer had “repeatedly lied to the court and opposing counsel”, and directed her client to destroy a social media account. Doe was sanctioned for having “falsified” some sonogram images that appeared in personal journals, which were submitted to the court as evidence of her abuse by Epstein.

However, it was not a complete victory for Black, as the judge also ruled that the high-stakes lawsuit could proceed.

Black, the 74-year-old former Apollo Global Management CEO, paid Epstein $170m, according to an investigation by the Senate finance committee, which he says was for tax and estate planning. Black has denied allegations that he raped or ever met Doe, who is now 40 years old. He has never been charged with any crimes in connection to Epstein or otherwise.

The Epstein scandal has prompted questions about why the accused sex trafficker’s elite circle of friends and associates has not faced greater scrutiny. That may change. Black is due to testify before the House oversight committee on 26 June, according to a person familiar with the matter, as part of the committee’s investigation into, among other things, Epstein’s sex-trafficking rings. He is also facing questions from the Democratic senator Ron Wyden, who claimed in a recent letter to Black that the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice “remove any lingering doubt” as to whether Black was “connected to women in Epstein’s network” and alleged that “powerful associates in the US and abroad were surveilling and paying off women on [Black’s] behalf”.

Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, called Wyden’s assertions “outrageous and false” in an emailed statement, and characterized the senator’s comments as a “politically motivated attack”.

The Guardian’s investigation, based on access to extensive court records, many of which are still under seal but are due to be unsealed soon, reveals how Black and his legal team’s private pleas to a federal judge led to a legal battle involving extensive written submissions and multiple hearings in a case in which he was not a party.

It included an extraordinary personal appeal from Black to Judge Rakoff, a well-known and respected jurist based in the southern district of New York. The written message, which was obtained by the Guardian, portrayed Black as a victim, invoking the death of Black’s father, disputing Doe’s credibility and citing the damage the allegations have done to Black’s reputation. It was submitted by the billionaire’s lawyers days before Rakoff denied the $2.5m award that Doe was due to receive in the Epstein-related class action lawsuit.

In another twist, Black’s legal effort was bolstered by a high-profile lawyer who is publicly heralded as an advocate for Epstein’s victims.

All these communications occurred outside public view.

In an exclusive statement to the Guardian in which Doe described her feelings about what has transpired, she said: “We are often taught that the justice system is there to protect victims and correct wrongs. My experience has shown me that it is far more complicated than that.
Justice is not always blind. It is often shaped by power, access, and who is able to withstand the process.
I am still here. And I am not done.”

Jane Doe takes Leon Black to court

In July 2023, Jane Doe alleged in a legal complaint filed against Leon Black in the southern district of New York that Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Black at Epstein’s townhouse in late spring of 2002. She was 16 years old.

Black, who is worth an estimated $14bn, was the chair and chief executive officer of Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm he co-founded and led until he stepped down in March 2021, in the wake of revelations he had paid tens of millions of dollars to Epstein. Black has said the payments were for legitimate financial advice and that he was “completely unaware” of misconduct by Epstein, who in emails released earlier this year by the Department of Justice sometimes referred to Black as “Mr Big”.

Apollo announced in January 2021 that an internal review by the Dechert LLP law firm, which Apollo’s board commissioned to investigate Black’s “previous professional relationship” with Epstein, found Black’s payments to Epstein were for “bona fide” financial services. The report found there was “no evidence” that Black was involved in Epstein’s criminal activities. That review has since faced scrutiny, however, including by Senator Wyden, who claimed his staff uncovered evidence that money paid by Black to Epstein “was used to finance Epstein’s sex-trafficking operations”. Black’s lawyer called Wyden’s “attack” on the Dechert report “completely baseless”.

In her legal complaint, Doe alleged that Epstein told her that Black was his “special friend” and that because she was Epstein’s “special girl”, he had chosen her to give Black the same kind of “massage treatment” that she gave to him. Doe understood, according to her legal complaint, this meant that she was expected to strip naked and have sex. But when Doe and Black went up to a third-floor massage room, she alleged in her complaint, Black threw her down on the massage table and then abused her vaginally and anally with sex toys. He then bit her vagina, she alleged, causing bleeding and extreme pain. Reflexively, the complaint says, Doe kicked him. In response, the complaint alleges, he became enraged, then raped her.

Doe alleged in her complaint that the internal abrasions she suffered from the alleged attack that day continued to cause her pain more than 20 years later. The complaint describes Doe as having autism. While she has an above-average IQ, the complaint alleges, her neurodivergence makes her “extremely trusting”.

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Illustration: Guardian Design/Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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