Billionaire Leon Black, the former CEO of Apollo and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was fiercely condemned Friday after fleeing an interview with members of the House Oversight Committee.
“Leon Black had a chance to do the right thing and help us bring justice to the survivors. Instead, he ran out of the room when he was pressed for information about his non-disclosure agreements with women and his relationship with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member of the committee, in a statement released Friday.
“He has now been subpoenaed and must provide real answers to the Committee. He will be held accountable if he doesn’t comply with our investigation.”
Black was long a client of Epstein’s, paying him around $170 million for what he claimed to be financial services and advice. Black has been accused of sexual abuse by several women, but has denied any wrongdoing. Black has also been close friends with President Donald Trump for decades.
Leaked emails from imprisoned Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell suggested she may have weighed offering Congress new information about Black in a bid for clemency, a theory floated by famed reporter Julie K. Brown, the journalist whose reporting led to Epstein's 2019 arrest.
Justice Department files released by the Trump administration as part of its publication of Epstein documents found that a woman told the FBI that Black had become “sexual” with her during a massage, and another told the FBI in 2020 that Black had raped her years earlier. During his interview Friday, Black addressed the aforementioned accusations directly, calling them “demonstrably false.”