Leon Black, the CEO of Apollo Global Management, announced he will retire by the summer, after an internal investigation found that he paid Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender, $158 million between 2012 and 2017.
The $158 million figure is "a sum much greater than previously known," according to Bloomberg News, and the NY Times reports, "The sum effectively bankrolled the disgraced financier [Epstein]’s lifestyle in the years after his 2008 guilty plea to a Florida prostitution charge involving a teenage girl."
Apollo, which Black founded in 1990, oversees $433 billion in funds. Black, whose net worth is estimated to be around $8 billion, is also chairman of the Museum of Modern Art's board of trustees.
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019. He had been facing a new set of sex trafficking charges from the Southern District of New York. The federal prosecutors claimed he used adult women to procure and groom girls into giving him and associates massages and performing sexual acts at his various homes, including his $88 million mansion on the Upper East Side.
In 2008, Epstein managed to get a cushy deal from federal prosecutors in Florida—including Alexander Acosta who later briefly served at President Trump's secretary of labor—and served a sentence at a Palm Beach county jail, which he was "allowed to leave nearly every day to spend 10 or more hours in his office in downtown West Palm Beach."
Last October, the Times reported that Black had transferred at least $50 million to Epstein after the 2008 conviction, with sources suggesting it could have been as high as $75 million: "It was not clear what kind of services Mr. Epstein provided to Mr. Black, whose $9 billion fortune can buy him access to the best lawyers and accountants in the world. Mr. Epstein, though he styled himself as a 'financial doctor' to wealthy clients, was a college dropout who had worked on Wall Street for just a few years, demonstrated no great skill as an investor and had no formal training in tax and estate planning."
Black's colleagues and clients at Apollo allegedly believed that the payments to Epstein showed questionable judgement.
An Apollo spokesperson told the Times in October that Black received estate planning advice from numerous advisers, including Epstein, "The trusts and estate planning advice was vetted by leading auditors and law firms," and said Black stopped using Epstein's service in 2018. The spokesperson added, "Mr. Black continues to be appalled by the conduct that led to the criminal charges against Mr. Epstein, and he deeply regrets having any involvement with him."
The internal report from Apollo apparently found no criminal activities connected to Epstein. Black will also donate $200 million to efforts that "seek to achieve gender equality and protect and empower women."
In November, MoMA trustees told the NY Post that they still supported Black, with one saying, "Leon’s been extremely good to the museum and he takes his work seriously." The museum has been contacted for comment.
