Billionaire Leon Black testifying before House committee investigating Epstein

Leon Black, a billionaire investor who employed and was close to Jeffrey Epstein, is appearing before members of Congress investigating the deceased sexual abuser.

In Black's opening statement to the House Oversight Committee, which was provided to CBS News, he said he first met Epstein in the 1990s, and began paying him for wealth management advice in 2013. Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, said he feels "terrible for Epstein's victims." 

"I want to state clearly that I did not know about this nefarious activity until Epstein was charged with trafficking in July 2019," Black 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."

Black said he employed Epstein in part because of his prolific network of relationships with powerful people. Black listed in his opening statement self-help guru Deepak Chopra; U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack; billionaire Thomas Pritzker; LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; former Goldman Sachs executive and Obama White House lawyer Kathy Ruemmler; the world's richest person Elon Musk; Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Microsoft founder Bill Gates; former President Bill Clinton; billionaire Peter Thiel; Trump confidant Steve Bannon; and banker Ariane de Rothschild, among others. 

Black compared Epstein to "Jekyll and Hyde." When he hired Epstein in 2013, Black said, he "appeared to me and to many others to have redeemed himself." He said Epstein "solved a massive estate problem for me, that none of the experts and lawyers I consulted had been able to solve."

"I knew Jekyll. I didn't know Hyde," Black said. Describing a dark side to Epstein, he said Epstein lied about the supposed tax benefits that came with paying him extraordinary sums.

"With hindsight, I now see that Epstein exaggerated, embellished, manipulated, and outright lied — prolifically and without concern for me or my family," Black said. "And I now see that his deceit was not limited to me but also extended to numerous highly sophisticated individuals. Epstein took credit for other people's ideas. He falsely claimed to have been involved in decisions about investments."

Earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote to the Oversight Committee demanding they ask Black about some $170 million in payments to Epstein between 2012 and 2017. In Black's opening statement, he tallied the figure at $158 million.

"To date, I do not believe Black has provided a credible explanation as to why he paid Epstein amounts that vastly exceeded those paid to other professional advisors involved in his tax and estate planning," the Oregon senator wrote.

Wyden also wrote to Black in March to demand answers to questions arising from revelations in the Epstein files about his "significant personal and financial entanglements with Epstein."

On Thursday, asked whether Black had responded to his letter, Wyden said, "He stonewalled repeatedly. We just haven't gotten the answers that are responsive."

The committee's ranking member, California Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia, called the sum "an enormous amount of money." 

"Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to commit his horrific crimes without the support of Mr. Black," Garcia said. His Democratic colleague from Virginia, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, said in a social media video that Black was "a central figure in Jeffrey Epstein's empire."

An attorney for Black wrote in an April letter to Wyden that documents released this year under the Epstein Files Transparency Act "do not contain any credible evidence that Mr. Black was aware of, or involved with, Mr. Epstein's then-ongoing criminal activities." 

Another of his attorneys told CBS News in December that an internal investigation at Apollo "concluded that Mr. Black paid Epstein for estate planning and tax advice, no more, no less."

In Black's opening statement, he also accused the media of "racing" to cover "sensational allegations" against him, "taking them at face value without conducting any investigation or undertaking even minimal diligence."

Emails released by the committee last year document that Epstein was involved in Black's personal matters while providing wealth management advice. Black had a six-year affair with a former Russian model, which ended in acrimony and allegations of abuse, according to court records.

As Black prepared a nondisclosure agreement in 2015 to secure the model's silence, Epstein offered him advice, including suggesting in an email that Black hire former law enforcement officers to approach her.

"Choose method of message delivery, my choice. - two highly respected former ---- fill in the blank, immigration, scotland yard. sfo. . who may knock on her door and present the terms," Epstein wrote. His writing frequently eschewed basic grammar and punctuation. 

The nondisclosure agreement broke down four years later, leading to a series of lawsuits and countersuits. Court filings show Black discussed the agreement with just two people: Epstein and a private investigator. 

The internal investigation at Apollo, which was conducted by the law firm Dechert LLP, concluded that while Black had "confided" in Epstein about personal matters, he paid Epstein for wealth management. The investigators wrote "that Black genuinely believed that Epstein was extremely smart, capable, and saved him substantial amounts of money."

Black is among several billionaires to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which also interviewed Gates, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and businessmen Les Wexner. 

Others who are expected to be interviewed in the next month include Ruemmler, and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and former JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley.