FILE: Leon Black, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Global Management LLC, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, USA, on Tuesday, May 1, 2018.
Patrick T Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A woman who had accused Apollo Global Management Co-founder Leon Black, who raped her in the New York mansion of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has agreed to drop her civil lawsuit against Black.
The woman’s lawsuit, Cheri Pierson, was “dismissed without prejudice and without prejudice to either party versus the other,” according to a Manhattan Supreme Court motion signed Friday by her attorney and Black’s attorney.
That notice means Pierson cannot revive her legal claims against billionaire investor Black in connection with the alleged 2002 attack on Epstein’s Upper East Side residence.
It also means Black has not made any payment to settle the case.
Black had denied Pierson’s November 2022 allegation that he raped her in a suite at Epstein’s mansion, where she went “in the belief that she would give Black a massage in return for the money she had been promised.” . to your complaint.
Black said in a statement to CNBC on Monday: “I have never met Ms. Pierson. I have no further comment.”
Black’s attorney, Danya Perry, said in her own statement: “This matter was dismissed with prejudice. I will have no further comment.”
A spokeswoman for Wigdor LLP, the law firm that represented Pierson, said: “We have no comment at this time.”
Black agreed in January 2023 to pay $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to be released from any possible claims related to the territory’s investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking business there.
Two years earlier, Apollo Global Management disclosed that its then-CEO Black paid Epstein $158 million for financial advice from 2012 to 2017, despite knowing that Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting sex from an underage girl in Florida to have requested.
Black left Apollo in March 2021, months earlier than he previously announced.
Epstein, 66, took his own life in a federal prison in Manhattan in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal child trafficking charges.
Black separately withdrew his appeal in a letter Saturday of a judge’s ruling in Pierson’s case denying his request for sanctions against Wigdor.
Black had alleged in that motion that Wigdor “repeatedly abused the court system to launder frivolous, unfounded and damaging allegations of sexual assault against Black in two lawsuits.”
The Wigdor law firm continues to pursue a separate lawsuit against Black that its lawyers filed in July, alleging that he raped a then-16-year-old girl with autism in Epstein’s Manhattan home in 2002.
Another lawyer for Black said last year that he had never met the accuser, a woman in her 30s who was identified in filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by the pseudonym Jane Doe.
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That lawyer, Susan Estrich, said at the time: “These malicious and defamatory lies disguised as allegations were deliberately fabricated by the Wigdor Law Firm as part of the firm’s vendetta against Mr. Black because of his vigorous and successful history of defending himself “Two years,” said Estrich.
A third lawsuit against Black, filed by a woman named Guzel Ganieva, was dismissed by a Manhattan Supreme Court judge last May.
Ganieva had claimed that Black defamed her by claiming that she had blackmailed him for many years after they had what he called a “consensual affair.” Ganieva’s lawsuit claimed he was a “predator” who “sexually harassed and abused” her for years.
In dismissing her lawsuit, Judge David Cohen pointed to the fact that Ganieva had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Black, who paid her about $9.5 million after she signed the NDA.
That agreement releases Black from “all matters, causes of action, claims, actions… which may arise prior to the execution of this Agreement… or at any time after the execution of this Agreement,” Cohen’s release states.
Ganieva has appealed the dismissal of her lawsuit.
Wigdor originally represented Ganieva in a lawsuit against Black, but she fired the firm before the lawsuit was dismissed.
In August, Black sued Wigdor and Ganieva in Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming he was maliciously prosecuted. This pending lawsuit also cites Wigdor’s claims against Black on behalf of Jane Doe and Pierson.
Wigdor and Ganieva have moved to dismiss the complaint.
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2024-02-20 21:17:48
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