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The Epstein Chronicles
Leon Black’s Team Quietly Pressured Federal Judge in Epstein Survivor Case (Part 2) (5/8/26)
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Leon Black has faced mounting scrutiny over his long and deeply intertwined relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, particularly after newly surfaced court filings revealed an aggressive behind-the-scenes legal effort tied to a woman accusing Black of rape...
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What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up where we left off with the article from the Guardian that was authored by Johanna Berkman about Leon Black and the accusations made against him. Judge Rakoff approved the claims administrators proposed allocations on January 5, 2024, including the allocation for Doe, but he said he intended to exercise an oversight role to ensure the allocation of class funds was fair and reasonable. The oversight role would be ex parte, he said, meaning that each side of any conflict could make their case to the judge without the other side being aware of was an unusual move for Rakoff. The judge, who had been called a true judicial maverick, has spoken publicly about the importance of transparency in the justice system. Everything needs to be public, the judge told the New York Times in 2009. The legitimacy of our court comes from the fact that they reason openly on the record based on the facts. Unless of course, that includes Jeffrey Epstein, right? Or his friends. Then it has to be done behind closed doors, right? Judge Rakoff. In January 2024, within days of DOE finding out about the 2 and a half million dollar allocation, her Wigdor lawyer, who was participating in a mediation with Black's counsel involving another client's case, disclosed that Doe had been allocated a major award in the J.P. morgan settlement. According to a chronology of events described in a 2026 court order, what happened next would be later characterized by Doe's then lawyer as a violation of confidentiality. Black's counsel, Susan Estrich, contacted Judge Rakoff on Black's behalf. Must be nice to have those kind of lawyers, huh? That can reach out from behind the scenes and talk to a judge when he's not on the bench. That is so unacceptable to me that I don't even know how to describe it. The judge needs to be impartial and there most certainly shouldn't be any behind the scenes negotiating or deal making. But unfortunately, Judge Rakoff, like the rest of them, they say one thing and they do another. On February 21, 2024, private and undocketed letter to Rakoff Estridge claimed that Doe was perpetrating serious fraud on the court and was not a real Epstein victim. According to a court order that subsequently described Estrich letter, according to someone familiar with the matter. Estrich, who was not representing a party in the J.P. morgan case, acknowledged in the letter that that reaching out to Judge Rakoff was unorthodox. Yeah, no, not something that happens ever. But here we are. When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and his buddies, all the rules go out the window. Estridge declined to comment on questions by the Guardian about the exchange. In the letter, Estridge asked Rakoff to open an inquiry into Doe and the allocation, according to a person familiar with the matter, and said she had reason to believe that the court appointed class counsel Brad Edwards and other lawyers would have directly relevant information to bear on the issues. So it looks like all these lawyers got together, conspired to make sure that Jane Doe didn't get any money. And the fact that the judge was playing ball with this is crazy. And it does make me wonder what kind of evidence, if any, they had to back that claim up. Estrich letters succeeded. Rakoff and Edwards, representing Class Council, agreed to take a closer look at those claims. Court records show legal experts consulted by the Guardian said an intervention such as the one made by Estrich on Black's behalf raised questions because such outside legal interventions in a proceeding are quite limited. She has no interest to be involved in that, and the fact that Rakoff let it occur is unacceptable. And I think that Rakoff should have nothing to do with anything that has to do with Epstein moving forward. He can't be trusted. Somebody who has an interest in a piece of litigation may not intervene in some other disputable party against whom he is opposed just because he would like to do them damage in that case. That's not how the system works. You litigate your own cases, said Sam. Is Sakharov a professor of constitutional law at New York University who's a leading scholar on class action lawsuits? Yeah, nothing about that seems right to me, and I'm certainly not some leading scholar. But all the backroom deal making, all the shenanigans that we've seen time and time again when it comes to Epstein and his friends, I'm done with it. Everything needs to be fully transparent. Everything in theory, if a lawyer for a defendant who's accused of rape or rights to a judge in a class action in which that alleged victim has been given a claim, it could even be seen as a way of harassing them and calling their testimony into disrepute. He added, it's not allowed if it's mal intentioned. And the line between what's allowed and what's mal intentioned is a very difficult one. I put the blame on Judge Rakoff. He could have stopped it. He didn't. I wonder why. What did he have to gain, but kind of relationship does he have with Leon Black? The Guardian reached out to Judge Rakoff for comment. His law clerk said in an emailed statement, it's a matter of record that the great majority of Epstein related proceedings before Judge Rakoff have been sealed at the express request of the various council for Epstein's victims in order to protect the victim's identifying information and that all parties have at all times consented to this ceiling. Beyond this, Judge Rakoff is prohibited by law from responding to your questions as they relate directly or indirectly to an ongoing proceeding before Judge Clark. So he can't respond, but he can get involved. His case can be moved by what happened in the other case. Sorry, I don't like that. And I don't care. If that's how the system's set up, it's wrong and it shouldn't be the case. On August 2, 2023, this reporter, preparing to publish an article in another publication, reached out to Leon Black spokesperson Whit Clay with a list of questions about financial and sexual allegations related to Black's ties to Epstein. The email included one question about the lawsuit that Doe had filed against Black a week earlier. Two days later, Black's team emailed a response, including a statement from Estrich, Black's lawyer about those case, predicting it would be promptly dismissed. Yeah, well, it's easy to be confident if you know the judge is going to play ball, right? Makes it a lot easier to be confident. Later that same morning, this reporter got an unexpected call on her mobile phone from a number she did not recognize. The caller introduced himself as Brad Edwards, class counsel in the Epstein victims lawsuit against JP Morgan, which had settled for 290 million one month earlier. As class counsel, Edwards said he had been in touch with the entire class of victims and and had access to hundreds of thousands of documents. When a particular case gets too much attention, he said, according to a contemporaneous record of the call, people would call up with stories about being victims of Epstein and he would have to sift through and figure out if they were true. Not one piece of Doe's story could ever be corroborated. And a lot of what she says just definitely could not have ever happened. Edward said he said he knew Doe was alleging she had met Black through Epstein. So in order for the Leon part to be true, the trafficking to Jeffrey Epstein would have to be true. Edwards said. He said the timeline of those claims can't make sense for many reasons. But when pressed for details, he said he could not say any more because it would expose other clients. After making these comments, Edwards said he wanted his remarks to be off the record, meaning they should not be published. Well, that's not very good, is it? Again, transparency, Brad, for you too. That goes for everybody. If we're going to get to the bottom of this, we need honest players on both sides. And unfortunately this case is littered with a bunch of people who are not honest. A bunch of people that are just trying to benefit and it all comes at the expense of the people who were abused. But according to principles widely followed by journalist or reporter and the source must agree information is off the record before the information is shared, not after. This reporter had not agreed that comments Edwards made about Doe were off the record and they shouldn't be. Put your name behind Brad Edwards, it would later emerge, appeared to have other dealings with Black's lawyers. Months before that phone call, the New York Times reported in 2023 that Edwards, in his capacity as an attorney for Epstein victims attended a multi day mediation between Black's counsel and lawyers representing the U. S Virgin Islands which concluded with Black agreeing to pay 62.5 million dollar settlement to the U. S Virgin Islands in January 2023 in order for Black to be released from any potential claims related to local authorities including investigation of Epstein sex trafficking in the territory. So basically you just show up with a big fat bag and you're like hey, get my name out of this and I'll give you 70 million. What sort of reality are we living in where that's acceptable? None of it's acceptable. None of it. The New York Times noted at the time that the settlement which had come to light in response to a public records request by the newspaper, showed the extent to which Black, once a Wall street titan, had gone to limit scrutiny of his decades long social and business ties to Epstein. Edwards declined to comment at the time and Black said the settlement was meant to resolve any potential claims that had arisen out of the unintended consequences of payments he made to Epstein for legitimate financial advisory services. Now who the is buying any of that? Talk about things that never happened. Six months after Edward surprise call to the reporter, a court order in those lawsuit against Black would later show Edwards and his colleague Brittany Henderson sent a sealed letter to Judge Rakoff as part of an inquiry that had been launched into those claims. The February 26, 2024 letter described those account as Inconsistent and said that there were doubts. She was a veritable victim of of Epstein and his associates. I mean, not for nothing, but how's that up to Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson? Shouldn't that be up to the court? The whole thing seems weird and contrived and frankly, I don't like any of it. Days later, on March 1, 2024, the then lawyer for Doe, Jean Christensen of Wigdor, sent her own letter to Judge Rakoff criticizing the intervention by Black's lawyers and the J.P. morgan case and accusing class Council Edwards and Henderson of acting improperly according to a later court order, describing the chronology of events like, is it greed? What is it like? I honestly don't understand. Why would somebody do what Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson are alleged to do? Unless of course, they wanted to get more money for their own payout. And considering that the survivors themselves really didn't benefit nowhere near as much as the lawyers, I have my doubts about the whole thing. Christensen also disclosed a new potential bombshell. Doe had kept journals from ages 16 to 19 that the lawyer alleged documented her abuse. The journals had been kept in a storage unit belonging to those adoptive family, she claimed the journals were school notebooks. There was one for each year from ages 16 to 19, beginning on her birthday. And each had a similar format. They had a scrapbook like feel in that they contained magazine clippings and sonograms from her pregnancies. According to court filings, the text of her journals was written in gel pen in a simple two line zigzag code meant to disguise at first the hand account of the violence allegedly perpetrated on her by Black, Epstein, Maxwell and others. According to court records, One entry states, Mr. Black is so important for some reason over my health, there is going to be hell to pay. I ruin their trip and I am dramatic. When that fat bit me, he threw me on the floor and blood all over Jeffrey's carpet and on the issue like for real. And again, look, I don't know what's true and what's not, folks. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I know for sure. But I think every single allegation made against Jeffrey Epstein, that and his people especially at this point, needs to be looked at and looked at hard. Another entry contains a type copy of Sylvia Platt's poem Stop Dead. Several lines are underlined, including fatso Millionaire. The name Leon Black is handwritten next to the title, arranged in a coded pattern. Excerpts of the journals are included in those amended lawsuit and were released by the department of justice as part of the Epstein files earlier this year. And that was the entry that we read earlier from the girl who had the diary. Obviously this was her. In a statement to the Guardian, Black's lawyers said the Guardian was ignoring the outlandish nature of claims in those journals, such as that she had been trafficked to Epstein to 50 different men, including powerful politicians. On March 15, 2024, less than a month after Rakoff received Estrich ex parte letter, he convened the first hearing in the Jane Doe inquiry. At the hearing for which Rakoff sealed the courtroom, Doe was put on the stand and cross examined by Edwards. Wow, Brad Edwards, what a terrible look. What an absolutely terrible look. Mr. Big Defender of the Epstein survivors out here working with Leon Black. I can't discuss the substance of what she was asked, said those adoptive mother who was present at the 15 March hearing and was speaking publicly about it for the first time. But Edwards questioning, she told the Guardian, was surreal. I could not believe that this was happening. He questioned my daughter in a way that was aggressive and invasive. I was shocked by his tone, especially because he was there as class counsel, which meant that he shouldn't have been safeguarding her as a claimant rather than subjecting her the hostile interrogation like you'd expect in a criminal proceeding, she said. That is a terrible look for Brad Edwards, there's no doubt about it. There's no reason that the class council should be acting in this way, in my opinion. Edwards did not respond to the Guardian's questions about his cross examination of Doe. Black's lawyers were barred from attending the hearing despite their objections. A court order filed publicly in April of 2026 by Judge Clark, who was presiding over Doe's case against Black, disclosed some details about the private proceeding. It described those 15 March testimony before Rakoff as being at times far fetched. Among her claims, though, had described how she had been the victim of an impregnation game and forced to carry out pregnancies from men who sexually abused her. In a court order, Doe is described as having testified that Epstein fathered four of her five children. Though Doe's lawyer later said in a court that Doe was only sharing what Epstein told her, not a representation of the truth. So look, there's no doubt that it's muddled, right 100%, but we need to have a fair accounting and we need to have actors that are fair on the stage. And it seems to me that that's not the case. A 2019 article by the New York Times described how Epstein told scientists and businessmen about his ambitions to use New Mexico Ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies. Judge Rakoff, the court order said, considered those journals to be central in determining those credibility. Rakoff appointed an expert to assess the inc dating on those journals. The results were inconclusive. Rakoff convened another hearing on July 8, this time by Zoom without either Doe's lawyer or Edwards present. These conditions had been agreed to by both parties, the judge presiding over Doe's lawsuit against Black later wrote in a court order. Among the topics Rakoff asked Doe about was a relationship with Maxwell and the frequency with which she was allegedly trafficked Epstein while she was in high school. Just so the claimant understands, rakoff said, according to an excerpt from the hearing's transcript, which is cited in a separate legal order. All of us, I feel, have a great deal of sympathy for you. You've had a very harsh life and our hearts go out to you, but we're just going to screw you anyway. We're going to make sure that your claim never makes it past where it should make it. The Doe inquiry culminated on July 19, 2024, with an extraordinary letter to Judge Rakoff from both Estrich and fellow Black attorney Michael Karlinsky, whose managing partner of the law firm Quinn Emanuel. The letter, which was obtained by the Guardian, contained within it a personal emotional appeal from Black to Rakoff. Black's lawyer stated in the letter that they were aware that Rakoff intended to issue his ruling on the dull matter. By July 31, Estrich and Karlinsky said they had learned from a colleague at the Paul Weiss law firm, which also represented Black, that Rakoff had raised the question about whether Black might reach a settlement with Doe. Well, that's what they always want. They want a settlement. They don't want to make this go forward. Right. Especially the court. If they can get a settlement, that's what they want. It's not clear to which Paul Weiss colleague the lawyers were referring. Brad Karp, the one time chair of Paul Weiss, was a known associate of Judge Rakoff. The two reportedly had dinner on a somewhat regular basis, according to a 2017 book. I'm sure there was no impropriety here with Judge Rakoff. Right? Right, right. Karp resigned from the chairmanship of Paul Weiss in February in the wake of the revelations of his personal dealings with with Epstein. Karp did not respond to the Guardian's request for comment. Black had no interest in settling with Doe. The two lawyers, Estrich and Karlinsky, wrote they then shared an impassioned appeal from Black that they said the financier had asked them to convey to the judge. Both lawyers declined to comment on the July 19 letter. The idea of settling with Jane Doe, Douglas Wigdor and the Wigdor firm is repellent to every core value I hold dear, Black stated. From childhood, my father, a former rabbi, taught me the importance of Shem Tav. Hebrew for a good name. Oh, give me a break. They always rely on the religion, right? Oh, my charity, my religion. I don't give a fuck. You're a depraved, demented person, buddy. I don't care if you're Jewish, you're Muslim, you're Christian or you're from the Church of the Inflamed toe. I don't care. Those lawyers at the Wigdor firm, Black said, had disregarded the truth and behaved in a way I believe to be profoundly unethical ways. Not since my father's death 49 years ago have I felt so much pain and seen such hurt inflicted on those I love. I can't settle with Jane Doe and the Wigdor firm, not only because of the damage their lives have caused, but more importantly because I don't know how I could look my children and grandchildren in the eyes and teach them the importance of. Of Shem Tov. Well, do the same thing that you did when you paid out the 62 million to the U. S. Virgin Islands, you fat. Invoking his father's death in a letter to Rakoff was a striking choice. Black's father, Eli Black, had been a socially prominent New Yorker and as a CEO of global company, the Chiquita banana importer, United brands. But on February 3, 1975, Eli Black killed himself by jumping out of the window of his 44th floor office in the Pan Am building on Park Avenue. After his death, it was revealed that he had authorized two and a half million dollar bribe to the president of Honduras in a bid to get lower export taxes on bananas. When United Brands was ultimately charged with criminal conspiracy on account of the scheme, Eli Black, according to the New York Times, posthumously named as a co conspirator. Aw, poor daddy was a criminal. I'm such a victim. Because my dad was a rich guy and he boned a bunch of people and then he took his life. Feel sorry for me? No, I don't feel sorry for you. Not at all. While Black did not share any details of his father's death and its aftermath in his appeal to Rakoff, he did not need to. The rising star federal prosecutor was who charged United Brands was none other than a young Jed Rakoff. Judge Rakoff declined to comment on questions about the personal message. As with other documents he received during the Doe inquiry, Rakoff did not enter the letter containing Black's personal appeal into the J.P. morgan class action. Publicly accessible docket. Lawyers and legal experts told the Guardian that they found Rakoff's decision to make his oversight role ex parte to be unusual. Well, yeah, of course he didn't want it in public. He knows and he knows the blowback. So he didn't want it to be something that's public. And don't think for a minute that these judges are our friends, that they care about the people in general. They don't. They care about their courtroom. They care about power. They care about precedent. But if you think they care about you or me or this young lady, you're crazy. They do not. One thing that sets class action cases apart from other cases is the level of transparency that's required, said Chris Seeger, a class action lawyer who was co lead counsel on the class action lawsuit against the NFL. Everything you do is out in the open. That's the whole idea. No side deals, no secrets, seeger said. So what are we doing here? Why are we doing this? Is anybody going to answer? Rakoff ruled to rescind DO's 2.5 million JP Morgan allocation in its entirety on July 31, 2024, less than two weeks after receiving Black's personal appeal. He also withdrew Doe from the US Virgin Islands Mental Health Fund for Epstein survivors, a class of which she is now officially no longer a member, all because Judge Rakoff got a letter from Leon Black about his dad. For Doe. It was a crushing blow, her adopted mother told the Guardian, as Doe would recount nearly one year later in a steel court declaration in her claim against Black. Black's letter to Rakoff was accepted without notice to me and was apparently considered prior to a final ruling, despite raising emotionally laden arguments about Black's character and suffering. Meanwhile, I was never permitted to submit a narrative impact statement or a rebuttal. She also had serious concerns about inappropriate influence and access, saying she had no equivalent means of communicating with the court. That defendants team had such access underscores a systemic imbalance that plagued these proceedings, she wrote. And that's true 100%. There's no doubt that if you're going up against a guy like Black, it's going to be a tilted deck. Judge Rakoff declined to comment. The seal declaration, which was seen by the Guardian, also hit back against some of the claims Doe said were made by Brad Edwards, though claimed, for example, that Edwards had asserted that no other victims had recognized Doe, even though Doe claimed he had only consulted two individuals. Doe said Edwards had also dismissed physical evidence that supported her connection to Epstein, including photographs from Martha's Vineyard, by stating Epstein had not been to Martha's Vineyard. In fact, those said there's evidence Epstein spent time on the island, which has subsequently been reported by ITV News and the New York Times. Edwards did not respond to the Guardian's questions about those claims, though pushed back too against claims that have been submitted to the court about her by an investigator working for Black's legal team, such as the claim that she had a personality disorder, not autism, and that her biological family said that Doe had a history of making up alternate realities. Those own records, a person familiar with the matter said, show she was legally adopted as an adult in the state of Virginia for good cause. Medical documentation, which the source said was submitted to the court confirmed her autism diagnosis and and post traumatic stress disorder stemming from long term sexual abuse. The medical record also states Doe has no history of personality disorder or psychosis, the source said, so it can't be both. Who's telling the truth? That's the real question. Doe was urged by her attorney to appeal Rakoff's decision to rescind her two and a half million dollar award, according to a sealed declaration that she filed. But on August 21, 2024, just three weeks after Rakoff rescinded DOE's allocation, Rakoff signed off on a stipulation between DOE and the J.P. morgan Settlement Fund for Epstein survivors, granting Doe a $200,000 settlement, according to a court filing seen by the Guardian. This made her eligible once again to participate in the USVI's Mental Health Fund. Please make it make sense. If you're going to take her out, why are you putting her back in but for a reduced amount? Judge Rakoff did not respond to the Guardian's questions about the August 2024 settlement stipulation. He's never going to respond. Last month, on April 23, Judge Clark, who is presiding over Doe's lawsuit against Black, issued a 76 page ruling in response to Black's motion for the case against him to be dismissed. Those former lawyer Gene Christensen of Wigdor and Doe had engaged in serious sanctionable misconduct. Clark had found Christensen had lied repeatedly to the court and the opposing counsel about what was happening with the JP Morgan Doe inquiry and had also directed Doe to destroy a relevant social media account that Doe had used to communicate publicly about her experience and as a purported Epstein victim. Clark also wrote that DOE had falsified three sonogram images out of a total of 11 that had been included in those journals. So eight of the 11 were real. Three of them were falsified. We're going to need more information about that, too. Wigdor withdrew his counsel for Doe days after disavowing three of the sonograms. Doe is now representing herself in the proceeding. Oh, that's not going to end well. I mean, is that really the case? There's no lawyer out there that's going to step up pro bono and help this lady out? What a world. Estrich Black's attorney, said in a statement to the Guardian. The only thing that matters is that a federal judge found, as a matter of fact, that Jean Christensen, the Wigdor law firm, and Jane Doe lied. They're being punished by the federal court. Nothing they say has any credibility. They are liars and should be completely ignored. How about we leave that up to a jury? How about that? While the order was widely seen in press reports as a serious rebuke of Doe and her legal team, Judge Clark said the misconduct need not doom Doe's case, and the case will proceed. Christensen, the attorney at Wigdorf, did not respond to the Guardian's questions. Douglas Wigdor, the law firm's founding partner, said in a press statement in response to the order, while we are upset about the sanction, we're pleased that our former client will get her day in court. In a letter submitted to Judge Clark this week that referenced the sanctions, lawyers for Wigdor and Christiansen asked for permission to file under a seal of motion for reconsideration. Wigdor also recently filed a separate lawsuit against against Black, claiming he's deployed multiple frivolous and malicious lawsuits as retaliation for representing accusers. His lawyers rejected the claims. Of course they did. Leon Black would never do that, right? In her statement to the Guardian, Doe said that she began her case as an effort to seek accountability, but she believes her lawsuit has become something much broader. It's become about what happens when a system meant to provide justice instead becomes another source of harm. I faced retaliation, misrepresentation, public scrutiny, and repeated efforts to undermine my credibility. I've been left to navigate the process alone with limited time, limited resources and overwhelming personal cost, she wrote. There were moments when I did not know if I could continue, but I made a promise to myself that I would not stop. So, look, we don't know all the details, right? Not down to the granular specs, but it seems to me that them reaching out to Judge Rakoff was completely and wholly unacceptable and inappropriate. So it's going to be interesting how this all plays out, because, remember, Jane Doe is still going forward with her suit. The sanctions might have hit, but the judge didn't throw it out. So this one is just warming up. So we're going to keep an eye on it, and we'll see how it progresses. And when we have some more information, one way or the other, we'll get it added to the catalog. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.