← The Epstein Chronicles
The Epstein Chronicles
Mega Edition: The New York Times Exposes The Relationship Between Leon Black And Epstein (5/22/26)
00:53:09
Leon Black’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein extended well beyond conventional financial advising and into deeply personal territory that raises serious questions about the nature of their association. Epstein was not only handling tax and estate...
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If you're into tech, you will love this. TikTok is a live lab where users post instant reviews of the latest trends. Download TikTok and check it out. What's up, everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. Jeffrey Epstein had relationships with a lot of powerful people. And one of the most powerful people, at least financially speaking, was Apollo Global founder Leon Black. And if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, then that's a name that you're already familiar with. And as you all know, we've been talking about Leon Black since the beginning, and that's because he's a very important person in this story. Without Leon Black, Jeffrey Epstein doesn't have anywhere near the capital that he ended up with. And not only that, but after he helped Leon Black out, he owned Leon Black for all intents and purposes. Once you have something to hold over someone's head, especially when you're someone like Jeffrey Epstein, at some point you're going to cash those chips in and look to get some currency out of it, right? And that most certainly is what Jeffrey Epstein did throughout his relationship with Leon Black. And in today's episode, we're going to keep that conversation going by diving into this massive article that was published by the New York Times and sent to me by one of the managers of the newsroom. So with that said, why don't we just dive into this article and, and see what they have for us? Like I said, this article was published by the New York Times, and the headline, How Epstein Helped Solve a Billionaire's Problems with Women. The Wall street titan Leon Black paid Jeffrey Epstein 170 million for what he said was tax at estate work. But his services went beyond that. This article was authored by Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver Greenberg, Steve Eder, and David Enrich. In October of 2017, a yoga instructor emailed Jeffrey Epstein with a delicate question. When might she receive the tens of thousands of dollars she'd been promised by the billionaire Leon Black? So right off the cuff, why would she be asking Jeffrey Epstein about money from Leon Black? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Epstein's the one that facilitated the whole entire thing. Right? Right. She and Mr. Black had been in a sexual relationship. And since at least 2009, hundreds of thousands of dollars had flowed to her from Mr. Black's bank accounts. But in 2017, the setup changed. Now Mr. Epstein would wire the money. In this case, $100,000. So right away, you see that Leon Black has been telling lies. Oh, it was all about tax advice. It was about this, it was about that. We were trading recipes for risotto. No, you weren't. You were using Jeffrey Epstein as a middleman, as a fixer, and as a tool in your toolbox to make things go away. Why can't you just be honest about it, Leon Black, and keep all of this in mind when you have people out here crying about the reputations of people like Leon Black? This man has had every chance in the world to explain himself, explain his relationship with Epstein and what he was doing giving the dude so much money. And at every single turn, he's chosen to lie instead of being honest. And when it comes to Epstein, I don't think any of these people have an honest bone in their body. He said that. Now he does it through you. The Woman wrote to Mr. Epstein in an email that the Justice Department released this year. Mr. Epstein wrote back confirming the arrangement. So right then and there, what was he doing involved with this transaction? I thought he was only giving you tax advice. And I thought that you and Jeffrey Epstein weren't close at all. Oh, that was a lie. Can someone explain to me how anyone thinks it's a good idea to have Leon Black's son as part of the administration? You would think that with everything going on, that would not be the move. Then again, though, you have an administration where the guy at the top was very close to Jeffrey Epstein as well. So to this administration, it doesn't even matter. They've moved on already. And unfortunately, considering the stakes when it comes to a war, a lot of people have moved on as well. And that's the nature of a story like this. It's so complex, it's so interwoven that you're not going to get to pay dirt in a couple of days, a couple of weeks, hell, a couple of years. You got to be in this one for the long haul. And there's a reason why we do this every single day the way we do. Because if you miss even a day, you're going to be behind the eight ball. The story moves so quickly, and stuff gets buried so quickly that if you're not on top of it, forget it. And don't think for a minute that the DOJ and the administration doesn't know that. They most certainly do. And for every minute that you're talking about what's going on in Iran, that's one less minute you're scrutinizing what went down with the Epstein files and the COVID up at large. And as much as I detest it, the strategy is working pretty well for the administration. A lot of people have taken the bait. And when it comes to engagement and driving clicks, that's what most people are looking for. And I get it, right? I'm not knocking people if they want to cover whatever they want to cover, I get it. But for me, I don't care if there's an alien invasion. This is the story that we're going to continue to talk about no matter what. And I think that if you're still here following along with the story as we speak, then you're not going to be thrown off the task either. So a fat shout out to everybody that is staying on target and not being thrown off. Now look, that doesn't mean, by the way, that you shouldn't be concerned about what's going on in other stories. You should be. But this story, as far as I'm concerned, is still the most important story out there. And that's because it reaches and touches just about every part of our lives, whether it's financial, whether it's politics, whether it's academia, every single layer has been penetrated and nobody has been held accountable. And as far as I'm concerned, that is completely unacceptable. So I'm going to continue using whatever little platform I have to keep the flags of discontent waving, right? Somebody has to do it. In the later years of Mr. Epstein's life, he was incarcerated and registered as a sex offender. No one did more to bankroll his opulent lifestyle than Mr. Black, 74, a towering figure on Wall street and a fixture of the global art scene. Well, is it because he really loves art or is it because he wants to launder money using art? My guess is he wants to launder money. I mean, that's pretty much always the goal, right? Reaching their grubby hands across the board and. And taking more. Mr. Black paid abstinen 170 million over six years for what Mr. Black said were tax and estate planning services. The sum dwarfed what elite law or accounting firms would have charged for similar work, baffling both his Wall street peers and investigators on Capitol Hill. It's not baffling now when you peel back the layers and you start looking at was obvious that Leon Black was paying for something else. And now we know for sure what else he was paying for. Not just tax advice. At the very least, help with women, whether that's fixing a situation that's one south or whether that's hooking them up with a woman. Whatever it might be, it's obvious that a lot more was going on here than tax planning. And look, even before we had these emails, we knew. We knew that this dude wasn't just helping with tax planning. It was rather obvious to anybody with a brain in their head. The millions of pages of Epstein related emails and other documents that the Justice Department released this year offer a potential explanation for the size of the payments. Mr. Epstein essentially served as a fixer whose services went beyond modernizing Mr. Black's finances or reducing his taxes, according to a New York Times review of those records. Well, I appreciate the New York Times checking our work, but we came to this conclusion a very long time ago. There was nothing else that it could have been, right? There was nothing else. Epstein obviously was doing a lot more than just tax planning or giving advice about finances. And anybody who knows anything about Wall street knows that, that the guy who's running Apollo Global doesn't need financial advice from a guy like Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein suggested ways to obscure millions of dollars that Mr. Black paid to women, as well as to Mr. Epstein himself. He brainstormed about how to avoid taxes on some of the payments. He took credit for diffusing a government audit of a woman who Mr. Black had paid millions of dollars. He planned ways to surveil if, intimidate, and silence another woman who was threatening to publicly accuse Mr. Black of abuse. He even counseled Mr. Black to separate from his wife after she learned of his infidelity. Yo, I have been contacted by multiple people who have said that they've been intimidated by people working for Leon Black. Multiple people. And they do it in a way that is not illegal. So what they'll do is they'll hire a private investigator to skirt all the right. And then later on down the road, if they're accused of intimidation, they'll just be like, I had a private investigator who's licensed, and all they were doing was asking questions. And that's how they get around that. It's not like they're sending, you know, a thug from the local gang to come and shake you down. That's not what they're doing. They'll tiptoe to the very edge of the law, the very line of it, and then they'll straddle that. And that's what we see from people like Leon Black all the time. When you have that kind of money, that kind of power, you're going to utilize it to try and intimidate people if they have bad things to say about you. And a guy like Leon Black has perfected the art. Mr. Black paid about 20 million to a dozen women, at least some of whom he'd had sexual relationships with. According to the recently released files and notes taken by congressional investigators and shared with the Times, Epstein was involved in figuring out ways to dispense a significant portion of that money. Yeah, you know, just a regular guy helping with tax advice. Nothing to see here. No financial crimes were committed. Nobody was hurt. Leon Blacks is just an aw shucks kind of fella. And he just happened to become mega rich over at Apollo Global by throwing darts at a dartboard and figuring out what to invest in. That's basically what they're saying, right? Leon Black, he's stupid. He's not really that smart. And he fell into all this by luck. I mean, what's the alternative? That he went in with eyes wide open and knew exactly what he was doing? Well, that's what I think happened. He'll tell you differently, but that's what I think happened.
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I don't believe for a minute that he was duped by Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Epstein summed it up to Mr. Black in a 2017 email. Mr. Epstein's job, as he saw it, was partly about saving you from yourself. In a statement, Mr. Black's lawyers Courtney Forrest and Susan Estrich said the Justice Department documents made clear that Mr. Epstein embellished, exaggerated, and lied about Mr. Black. And it's convenient, right? Everybody wants to say that the relationship with Epstein was just a big lie. And with Epstein being dead, pretty convenient for them to take that approach. Who's going to deny it? Well, the documents deny it. And even in the face of documentation, these people continue to double down on their lies. The recently released documents, which include some of Mr. Black's financial records, have intensified congressional scrutiny of his relationship with Mr. Epstein and whether it crossed ethical or legal boundaries. Is there any doubt that. That it at the very least crossed Ethical boundaries. And that's giving him the benefit of the doubt, which we shouldn't even do, by the way. But let's just give him the benefit of the doubt. Does anyone out there really think this didn't cross ethical boundaries? I mean, maybe if you have Bill Cosby as the head of ethics for your company, things are cool. But short of that, I'm guessing HR is going to want to have a word with you. The House Oversight committee recently asked Mr. Black to sit for an interview. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has been investigating Mr. Black's financial ties to Mr. Epstein for years, accused him in a letter last week of seemingly using Mr. Epstein to hide payments to women. He also questioned whether Mr. Black had complied with tax laws. Now, Mr. Wyden might have himself a bit of a problem considering his own son in 2016. Look, to get money from Jeffrey Epstein. Now, we're going to have an episode about that coming up. But when I tell you that this is an all sides problem, that's what I mean. There's plenty of blame to go around here. And all the people that are pointing fingers don't even want to clean up their own living room. In an interview, Mr. Wyden said that he had never believed that Mr. Black paid Mr. Epstein 170 million solely for estate and. And tax advice. I think this all comes down to hush money, he said, as well as Mr. Epstein doing the kinds of things that would keep Mr. Black ahead of the law. Yes, 100%. That is exactly what went down, and that's exactly what Epstein's role was and function was when it comes to Leon Black. Ms. Estridge said that Wyden's claims were outrageous and false and were meant to serve his own selfish political interest. She accused him of leaking Mr. Black's confidential financial information and trying to distract from the fact that Mr. Wyden's son, a hedge fund manager, sought an investment from Mr. Epstein in 2016. Mr. Wyden said his son's presence in the Epstein documents would not change the course of his investigation. Well, you better believe it won't, because your son is on the clock just like everybody else who's involved in this. The same way I yell and scream about Ben Black, Leon Black's son, I feel the same way about Mr. Wyden's kid, because, look, folks, this transcends politics. It's not right versus left at this point. It's good versus evil. And that's not even hyperbole. Right? These people that would lord over us are truly evil, in my opinion. All you have to do is take a look at the way they talk about us in those emails. And it's not just talk, obviously. Look how they put it into action. And when it comes to a guy like Leon Black, is there any doubt that at the very least, these two idiots were stealing money hand over fist? Is there any doubt about that? Laundering money, evading taxes, paying hush money? The list goes on and on. So his lawyers can say whatever they want and they can act like he was just duped by Jeffrey Epstein like the rest of these people are saying, but it doesn't really hit. And I think that narrative is certainly played out, especially when we're talking about Jeffrey Epstein. All right, folks, we're gonna wrap up episode one right here, and in the next episode, we're gonna pick up with this article where we left off. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box. What's up, everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick right back up where we left off with the New York Times article talking about Leon Black and Jeffrey Epstein. This article was authored by Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver Greenberg, Steve Eater, and David Enrich. Mr. Epstein and Mr. Black first met in the mid-90s, not long after Mr. Black Co founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. The two became friends. Mr. Black and his wife Deborah, named Mr. Epstein to the board of their family foundation. In 2003, Mr. Black was among the contributors to a book celebrating Mr. Epstein's 50th birthday, signing his entry, Love and Kisses. And that's the birthday book, of course, that also included the alleged card or letter from Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump says it's not real, but when you look at it, it sure looks real to me. And considering that Congress now has that book, what do you think the chances are that Donald Trump is telling us a lie? I think the chances are pretty good. Considering all the other lies that Donald Trump has told us about Jeffrey Epstein and his relationship with him, I'd say that the chances are good that he lied about that letter as well. Six years later, when Mr. Epstein was released from jail after serving time for soliciting prostitution from a minor, Mr. Black was eager to celebrate. An assistant informed Mr. Epstein that Mr. Black wanted to sing him Happy days are here again. Oh, my good buddy Jeffrey gets out of jail for molesting a kid, and I want to sing him Happy days are here again. What sort of disgusting, degenerate bastard wants to do that. Oh, that's right. Leon Black, that's who. If I have to listen, I'd rather be in jail, Mr. Epstein replied. On several occasions, Mr. Epstein introduced Mr. Black to women. According to emails and investigative records released by the justice department, as well as interviews with lawyers involved in the Epstein cases, at least three women later accused Mr. Black of rape or sexual assault, allegations that he has denied. Mr. Black has never abused, assaulted or raped any girl or woman, and the idea of doing so is repulsive and reprehensible to him. His lawyers said, well, I would hope so, but I don't know if I believe that. I mean, there's some serious allegations that have been made against Leon black, and not one of those cases has ever went to trial. Hell, not even to discovery. Keep in mind, this is the same guy that paid, what, 62 and a half million dollars to get himself out of trouble down in the u. S. Virgin islands. So we're talking about a guy that will go to great lengths to keep his name out of this story. The only problem for him is his name is smack dab in the middle of it. And anybody who's serious about investigating what happened here knows that. The Manhattan district attorney's office briefly investigated sexual assault allegations against him. No charges were filed. The u. S. Virgin islands conducted a civil investigation of Mr. Black's relationship with Epstein and several women. Mr. Black paid a 62 million dollar settlement with the territory before it made any public accusations. And this is a big problem with the usvi. They talked a big ass game about caring about survivors and people who were abused, and then they raked in over $200 million, and not one single dollar of that was distributed to survivors or people who were hurt. So for all intents and purposes, the USVI ate at both ends of the table. When epstein was alive, they were enjoying his largess. They were in bed with him, they were getting a bunch of dough from him, and then when he died, they had the audacity to sue people that were connected to them. They have the audacity to sue the estate and literally take money from the survivors themselves. Completely unacceptable. And I remember at the time calling it out and people saying to me, well, at least the USVI is doing something. Yeah, enriching themselves. You know who got back burnered like usual? The survivors. That too. Meanwhile, people like Leon black get to just scurry off into the night. By 2012, the friendship between the two men had also become a business relationship. Mr. Black, who was at the time worth 3.4 billion, was dealing with some complex tax issues. That year, Mr. Epstein helped devise a way to restructure a trust and save Mr. Black hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. While it's unclear to what degree the idea originated with Mr. Epstein or Mr. Black's other advisors, it cemented Mr. Epstein's value in his eyes. It was all Epstein, not his other advisors. You don't bring somebody on board and pay him the money that you're paying them. If you're going to lean on your other advisors, that's stupid. He brought Epstein in because Epstein offered him something that his other advisors couldn't or wouldn't. A little walk on the wild side, if you get my drift. A law firm that Apollo hired to review the Black Epstein relationship later characterized Mr. Epstein's work on the trust as the most important service that he provided to Mr. Black. He stepped down from Apollo in 2021. The law firm Deckard concluded that Mr. Epstein's tax and estate planning services had been legitimate and vetted contemporaneously by well qualified lawyers. Why didn't those lawyers just take care of the taxes in the first place? Why do they have to check Jeffrey Epstein's work if Epstein was so great? But other assignments that were not mentioned in Deckard's 2021 report had been much more sensitive. And that's the thing with these reports that these internal reports, I don't trust them ever. Oh, let's have an outside company come in and take a look at what we have going on. Who's paying that company? Oh, that's right, you are. So do you think they're not going to play ball and only dig deep enough to find surface issues or what you want them to find? Because if you think they're going to go deep, like an independent investigation, you have not been paying attention. That's not how these investigations work, unfortunately. Instead, what we have most times is a whitewash. Oh, let me bring in this friendly company, this friendly law firm, this white shoe law firm, and they'll come up with this narrative that makes our investors more at ease. That's all it's about. It's not about finding out what really happened or holding anyone accountable.
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For years, Mr. Black had been paying women, some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, according to the Justice Department's Epstein documents, court filings, Mr. Wyden's letter, and two of the lawyers involved in the Epstein cases. For tax purposes, Mr. Black classified many of the payments as gifts. The recipient of a gift generally does not need to pay taxes on it. The giver does not need to pay taxes either until his lifetime giving exceeds a certain amount. The threshold varies by year, but in 2012, the limit was about 5 million and Mr. Black had surpassed it. Email show that meant he would have to start paying a 40% tax on any large gifts. Oh, we can't have that. You want to send somebody like Leon Black into orbit, tell him he has to pay taxes? Forget it. These dudes spend, I would say, a significant amount of their time looking for ways to park their money in places that they never have to pay taxes on it. It's like a pastime for these people. Mr. Epstein suggested that because at least some of the gifts had come from a Bank account that Mr. Black held jointly with his wife, perhaps half could be attributed to her for tax purposes. That would increase Mr. Black's capacity to to make tax free gifts. Just another way to try and gain the system. How many of you out there are gifting people money to avoid taxes? Hell, maybe we should be. Maybe everybody should jump on this train. They want to put these loopholes in for rich people. Maybe we should exploit them too. Imagine showing up to H R Block and being like, hey, I want the Leon Black treatment. I want you to do for me what Jeffrey Epstein did for Leon Black. Wonder how that would go over? But the question was not only how much Mr. Black might owe in taxes, it was also that he and the women would have to disclose to the Internal Revenue Service. If the payments were not gifts, the women would need to report the money as income on their tax returns. If the payments were gifts, Mr. Black would have to disclose them all on a gift tax return. None of that happened. And this is what I'm telling you about taxes. At the very least, I know it's not the fancy charges everybody wants, but if it's good enough for Al Capone, it's good enough for these scumbags. A rule of thumb for the ultra wealthy is to limit unnecessary paper trails, which create opportunities for misunderstanding, audit risk, and reputational exposure, said Victoria J. Hanneman, a professor at the University Of Georgia school of law, who specializes in taxes and estates. Now imagine being Leon Black and going to somebody like Epstein instead of this lady. You mean to tell me that Victoria Hanneman doesn't know as much about taxes as Epstein? Well, we know that's BS and the reason that he went to somebody like Epstein is because he knew that Epstein wasn't scared to call her out of the lines. And that's exactly what Leon Black was looking for. Somebody that would play ball. In late 2012, Mr. Epstein and Mr. Black's other advisors discussed strategy. Mr. Black could donate money to a family trust, and the trust could then make additional gifts. Mr. Black would still owe taxes, but payments will no longer come directly from him. There are so many different layers to the tax system and so many ways to game it that it's disgusting. People like Leon Black have turned this into an art form, and nobody was better at it than Jeffrey Epstein going forward. His payments to at least some women came from several trusts that he controlled. Emails and financial documents show Mr. Black's lawyers said that all of his payments to women and gift taxes were vetted and and approved by legal and accounting experts. They added evidence that communications were sent to Mr. Black is not evidence that he read, agreed with, or followed advice in those messages. No, not at all. How about the $158 million, though? That might be a clue. That might be some evidence. The problem is they think you're stupid. That's what they think. They think they can just pitch whatever narrative they want to pitch and it's gonna work out for them. And in the past, it was true. It would. And that, of course, is because the legacy media was willing to play ball. But not anymore. I think the legacy media understands now that they can't protect people like Leon Black anymore and that people are demanding answers. And people know that what they've been told and what they've been shown is a bunch of. And look, it's not just people like me telling you that anymore. You have the emails for yourself now. While Mr. Epstein kept advising Mr. Black on financial matters, he was also branching into less conventional fare. Mr. Black had a long running affair with a Russian woman, Guzell ganieva. And by 2015, she was threatening to go public with allegations of sexual abuse unless he paid her $100 million, according to justice department and Epstein documents and interviews with people familiar with her claims. Mr. Epstein was there to help. And we read a bunch of those court documents. Absolutely atrocious. Now, look, there is zero doubt that Ms. Ganeva entered into this relationship with her eyes wide open. And this isn't a case of a young girl that was trafficked by Epstein to Leon Black. The problem with gazelle Ganieva is she says that she was abused. Now, of course, there's two sides to every story, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But now when we're talking about people like Leon black, sorry, buddy, you don't get the benefit of the doubt from me. That July, after the two men met, Mr. Epstein drafted a menacing email that was apparently meant for Mr. Black to send to Ms. Ganieva, who at the time was in her 30s. I felt it necessary to contact some friends in FSB, the message read, referring to the Russian security service. And this is what I was telling you a few months ago. This is a very concerning email, and it really goes to the heart of the whole conversation about Jeffrey Epstein being intelligence. What, he could just reach out to some friends in fsb. How many friends do you have in fsb? The message warned that her attempt to blackmail a U. S. Businessman would be viewed in Russia, which was trying to attract western investments, as a grave threat and would be dealt with extremely harshly. Basically setting her up to get killed, Right? I mean, we're talking about Russia here. You really think that the Russian mafia or the FSB or Putin, all the same, right, Gives a goddamn about this girl's life, this woman's life, especially if she's not connected to anybody. The message suggested that Mr. Black could pay her 50,000amonth for two years. I expect never, ever to hear a threat from you again, Mr. Epstein wrote in Mr. Black's voice. Guys, are you paying attention yet? Epstein wasn't just some lone predator with some proclivities who happened to know some friends. There is no indication that Mr. Black read the message which Mr. Epstein sent to himself, or that it was sent to Ms. Garnieva. But it became something of a playbook for Mr. Epstein in the weeks ahead. Later that month, he emailed Sergey Belikov, a well connected Russian government official, to request a favorite. He explained that Ms. Ganeva had tried to blackmail a group of powerful businessmen in New York. It's bad for business for everyone involved. Mr. Epstein asked if he had any suggestions. Oh, I'm sure he does. You know, falling out of a window, poisoning. Plenty of suggestions. Mr. Belikov responded by leveling damaging personal allegations against Ms. Ganieva and said that limiting her access to to the U. S. Would be a great threat to her business. At the time, Mr. Epstein was in regular contact with Brad Karp, the chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss and one of Black's most trusted advisors. Mr. Epstein and Mr. Karp discussed whether they could somehow block Ms. Ganieva from the U. S. Which she had most recently entered on a tourist visa. And there was a whole big thing about Leon Black trying to get a UK passport for Ms. Ganieva as well. If you don't think these dudes were engaging in immigration fraud, you got another thing coming. They most certainly were. I know. Not as salacious, not as ritzy, not headline grabbing, but the kind of that sends you to prison. Another possibility was to enlist law enforcement. Your call on FBI or NYPD. Mr. Epstein wrote to Mr. Carp proposing that Ms. Ganeva be arrested. And after Mr. Black presses her, passes her, excuse me, a large check, grand larceny, etc. There's no indication that they went to law enforcement at the time. Well, Epstein could have just called one of his buddies, maybe his handler. Hey, so and so, let's go after this person. Mr. Epstein tracked down information about Ganieva's whereabouts. How do you think he did that? Refer back to my comment about about his handler, her acquaintances and even her young son. He suggested to Mr. Carp that Mr. Black enlist private investigators from Nardello and Company. The Nardello investigators soon began running surveillance on Ms. Ganieva. And in August they put in motion a plan to secretly record a series of meetings between Mr. Black and Ms. Ganieva at posh New York restaurants. The goal was to catch her on tape admitting that Mr. Black had not abused her. Emails show that Mr. Epstein and Mr. Karp strategized before and after some of the encounters. And Karp is gone from his law firm. By the way. He had to step down because he's a artist and another person that was enabling Jeffrey Epstein's nonsense. But yeah, care about his reputation. Over meals at the Four Seasons lab, Bernardine and the modern Mr. Black increased the amount of money he was offering Ms. Ganeva while sprinkling in threats about her ending up in jail if she didn't stop threatening him. According to transcripts of the recordings, Mr. Epstein suggested raising the offer to 100,000amonth for years into the future. A proposal that appears to have carried the day. The final deal struck on October 2015 call for Mr. Black to pay Ms. Ganieva a total of 18 million over the next 15 years. In return, she signed a non disclosure agreement in which she said that the allegations she made against Black were not true. Mr. Epstein appeared to be involved in setting up the payments to Ms. Ganieva through a generically named Trust email show. His work on the Ganieva matter was not mentioned in the Deckard report. Of course it wasn't, because it was the whitewash. I told you that at the time. And now we have those receipts. So next time you hear about one of these internal investigations, keep in mind what happened with Deckard, because this is pretty much the playbook. They have one of these white shoe law firms come in, they run some kind of nonsense about how great things are and how that have they found nothing and how everything's on the up and up and then people just accept it and we all move on. Well, turns out that Deckard was bullshitting. They didn't do a robust investigation. And Leon Black was a lot more connected to Jeffrey Epstein financially and otherwise than anyone ever let on. And in the next episode where we pick this article back up, we'll continue that discussion. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box. 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 that New York Times article talking about Leon Black and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And once again, this article was authored by Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver Greenberg, Steve Eater, and David Enrich.
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The same month as the deal with Ms. Ganieva, Mr. Black and Mr. Epstein worked out an agreement of their own. It involved a payment of 20 million in fees to Mr. Epstein. The plan appeared to be structured, at least in part, to avoid taxes. Again, that's what they were doing. The whole entire point of going to Jeffrey Epstein is to avoid taxes. You don't have to be a genius to figure this shit out. You don't have to be Inspector Gadget. Mr. Black would pay 10 million to Epstein's primary company, Southern Trust. But the other 10 million would be in the form of a donation to one of Mr. Epstein's charitable organizations, Gratitude America, which until then did not have any funds. Gratitude America soon began dispensing the Money in ways that could burnish Mr. Epstein's reputation or strengthen his ties to figures in academia and other fields. And if you were wondering why they didn't charge Epstein with rico, here's just another example of why. They didn't want to catch all these big fish, all these big donors, all these people that keeps moving, and it's really no more complicated than that. They had everything they needed to make it a RICO case. They chose not to. That was the decision. There were benefits for Mr. Black, too. Mr. Epstein's accountant, Richard Kahn, noted in an email to one of Mr. Black's advisors that a goal of the arrangement was to maximize deductions, and Mr. Black would be able to write off the 10 million and potentially lower his tax bill. The catch was that private foundations like Gratitude America have to file public reports disclosing their donors in an effort to avoid public disclosure of Leon's name. This charitable donation should be paid from your LLC that owns automobiles, Mr. Khan wrote to Mr. Black's advisor. Ultimately, the money would come from a different entity, BV70 LLC, that had been set up to own Mr. Black's yacht. It's all one big ass shell game. And that's why it was laughable when they tried to tell you that Epstein was only worth, what, 660 million? Yeah, on the books. If that's what he has on the books. How much do you think was off the books? At least double. At least. Because remember, that money is accruing interest. He has it somewhere. And my guess is it's, you know, offshore or something like that, and it's accruing interest as it sits there. So not only is he not paying taxes on it, he continues to generate wealth on the deposit. And God only knows where that money is now or who is entitled to it. My guess is that Conan Indike they know where all the money is, at least in my opinion. You're around Epstein for that long, you're with them for that length of time. And not as some bystander either. Right? These guys were right in the mix. The accountant and the house lawyer. Pretty sure they know where the proverbial bodies are buried. While the emails between aids to Mr. Epstein and Mr. Black describe the donation as part of a fee payment, the Deckard report implied that it was simply an act of charity. Mr. Black felt comfortable making this donation because he understood that Epstein was a strong proponent of scientific innovation. Oh, yeah, that's exactly what was going on. Epstein's a strong proponent of scientific innovation. If that means abusing people and bundling money, then I guess Epstein's Einstein. Short of that, just a scumbag. That's it. Dirty ass scumbag. Mr. Wyden in his letter to Mr. Black said the emails pointed to possible illegal activity. Intentionally disguising payments for professional service as charitable contribution. To claim a tax deduction would constitute tax fraud. He wrote. And look, if you want to get a guy like Leon Black, that's how you're gonna have to do it. It's not going to be the traditional way. You're not going to get them, you know, red handed involved in Epstein's, you're going to have to really dig. But I think there's enough here as far as financials go that a true full blown investigation should be initiated. And the fact that we haven't seen that yet tells you everything you need to know about the seriousness of the doj, the SEC and everybody else involved. But here's the good news. Senator Wyden has sent a strongly worded letter to Leon Black that'll show him. Mr. Wyden said in the interview that the Deckard report appeared to whitewash some of Black's actions. And Apollo spokeswoman said Deckard's review was thorough and independent. No, it wasn't. Sorry, it wasn't. And I called it out at the very beginning. The second they announced it, I knew, I knew the fix was in. You don't have these kinds of reports ever come back with bombshells, ever. And, and they choose a company like Deckard or a law firm like Deckard that they're familiar with and they know that they can, you know, work with, if you will. And the whole entire goal was to calm down investors who were starting to panic a bit about Epstein and Leon Black's relationship. That's what the whole investigation was about. Not about getting to the truth, not about finding out what's what, but about applying some bomb to a wound that is gaping. And they hope that the report would make it all go away, but there's just too much here. And there is no way that that Deckard report can be taken seriously, at least in my opinion. Mr. Black's voluminous gift giving drew the attention of the IRS. Starting in 2016, the agency began auditing Mr. Black and a woman named Anastasia, with whom he was having an affair, according to justice department documents and two people familiar with the relationship. Mr. Epstein worked with Mr. Black's accountants on audits of the billionaires taxes. But he appeared to be especially involved in the audit of Ms. Ciro a former model from Ukraine, another person from Ukraine, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, all these countries. Do you think that's a coincidence? It most certainly is not. After Epstein was now the first time here in America, he turned his attention to Eastern Europe and to South America. And all these girls he was bringing in were from these countries where they don't really have recourse, Right? What are they going to do? Go complain to Putin? Go complain to insert dictator here? Not going to work out so well for them. And Jeffrey Epstein and his associates, they knew that. And that's why they targeted people in places like Ukraine and Russia. Recently released records show that Mr. Black was paying her millions of dollars. The IRS was focused in part on more than 600, 000 that Ms. Ciro had received from one of Mr. Black's trusts. He had not paid taxes on the payments because she considered them gifts. The email show an IRS auditor wanted to review Mr. Black's gift tax return to see if he too had classified them as gifts. The auditor also sought to interview Ms. Ciro about her relationship with Mr. Black, who had helped her set up as an art dealer record show. Ah, come on. You mean to tell me that they weren't reporting their money? That would never happen for somebody like Leon Black, right? That's a guy that really wants to be above board. He really wants to pay everything he owes. That's what the record shows, right? That Leon Black is the kind of guy that's going to pay all of his taxes. As Mr. Epstein sought to resolve Ms. Ciro's audit, he acted as a liaison between her and Mr. Black's advisors. Mr. Epstein arranged for Mr. Black's accountant to write a letter to the IRS auditor confirming that the payments had been gifts. Mr. Epstein spent months dealing with the zero audit, and when it appeared to get resolved, he took credit. A spokesman for Ms. Zero said Mr. Epstein helped with the audit because he was a tax expert. After the audit was complete, she had nothing more to do with Epstein, he said. A tax expert, huh? Cool. And I'm an astrophysicist. The fuck you mean a tax expert? I think what you mean is a pilfering from the American people expert. That's what you mean, right? The report that Deckard prepared for Apollo noted that Mr. Epstein had helped deal with a number of IRS audits of Mr. Black. It did not mention his role in the audit of Ms. Hero. Again, just another Black mark on Deckard and this so called independent review. And I'll tell you what, it feels kind of vindicating having this Come out now because I told you this from the jump and at the time, it was my speculation, right? I didn't have anything to go on, Just my spidey sense and the history of these kinds of investigations. But now that we have the evidence, it all makes sense, doesn't it? Mr. Epstein's involvement in personal matters was only increasing after Ms. Black learned of one of her husband's extramarital affairs. Mr. Epstein suggested to Mr. Black that he separate from her so he doesn't have a heart attack. As Mr. Epstein put it in an email to Mr. Karp, the Blacks remain married. Mr. Black's lawyers said he never asked Mr. Epstein for a marital advice. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure they never chopped it up. Did he ask Epstein for advice about Russian women? I'm guessing he did. One of the other women with whom Mr. Black had a relationship was the yoga instructor Mr. Epstein was involved in paying her. The woman, who was originally from Siberia, had known Mr. Epstein since at least 2009, when she was in her late 20s. Siberia. Look how far their net went. All the way to Siberia, all the way down to South America, and everywhere in between. But sure, tell me again that Epstein was a lone predator and he was just acting on his own desires. Emails indicate that Mr. Epstein tried to connect her to powerful men, including the then Prince Andrew and a senior JP Morgan Chase executive, Jess Staley. Mr. Staley has denied knowing her. A spokesman for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor didn't respond to her request for comment. In 2017, she reached out to Mr. Epstein after receiving 28000 from him, not the 100, 000 that Mr. Black had told her to expect. I just wanted to ask if there was any misunderstanding, she wrote. She added that she previously had been paid directly by Mr. Black and didn't know how the new system would work. After some back and forth, Mr. Epstein confirmed that the full amount was on its way. Next week you will receive, he wrote. Mr. Wyden said in his letter that Mr. Black appeared to use Mr. Epstein as a middleman, raising concerns of potential money laundering. Potential, huh? I would say that there is a 100 chance that they were laundering money. And if you crack the books, just about every single person that we've talked about that was connected to Epstein financially would be involved. And again, that's why we don't see rico. Despite, or perhaps because of their close relationship, tension had been building between Mr. Epstein and Mr. Black. In 2017. That's when it boiled over. Mr. Epstein had received a $170 million by then, but complained that he was not getting the money or gratitude that he deserved. That spring, Mr. Epstein mentioned to Mr. Karp that a rumor was circulating that Mr. Black was using cocaine. Mr. Black soon learned what Mr. Epstein said, and he was furious. In what Epstein later described as an ugly meeting, Black accused him of spreading the cocaine rumor because he was dissatisfied with his compensation. He said Mr. Epstein was out of control. In their statement to the Times, Mr. Black's lawyer said other than experimenting with drugs early in his life, Mr. Black had not used illegal substances in more than 40 years. I don't believe that Wall street guys, they like their blow, so I have no doubt that these dudes were dabbling at the very least. The men continued to meet and do business over the next several months, but signs of a strain persisted. That summer, Mr. Epstein complained about incurring a steep financial loss while helping Mr. Black save millions of dollars in capital gains on a complicated transaction involving a Gio comedy statue and Sazani painting. Something's wrong, Mr. Epstein wrote in a long, rambling email to Mr. Black in August of 2017. I'm not sure what it is, but it's clearly not the normal you. Mr. Epstein lamented that despite everything he had done for Mr. Black, he had failed to even buy me lunch. Again, everything's transactional. Keep that in mind. Epstein didn't have friends. Everything was about transactions.
- [52:18]
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During Memorial Day at Lowe's Shop Household must haves for less save 80 on a char broil performance series four burner grill to chef up something special plus get up to 45% off select major appliances to keep things fresh. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Lowe's we help you save valid through 527 while supplies last selection varies by location. See Lowes.com for details. Visit your nearby Lowe's.
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Mr. Black did not appear to respond to the email. Two months later, allegations about the movie producer Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct were dominating headlines, and Mr. Epstein was viewing Mr. Black's situation with women through that lens. We live in a world where men in power cannot be seen to be taking advantage of young 20s women, Mr. Epstein wrote in an email to Mr. Karp. He said that some of the ways Mr. Black was handling his affairs with women with were fraught with danger and asking for trouble. Mr. Black and Mr. Epstein kept working together for at least another year. Oh, the fallout was just so bad they kept working together for another year. Or the fallout story is a bunch of B.S. in the fall of 2018, Mr. Black asked Mr. Epstein to review his latest tax return. He invited Mr. Epstein to participate in a planned investment. Mr. Black also pushed Mr. Epstein to repay 30 million he had borrowed from Mr. Black in connection with the art transaction. Mr. Epstein wired 10 million to one of Mr. Black's companies, but did not repay the rest. On November 5, 2018, assistance to Mr. Epstein and Mr. Black emailed about rescheduling a lunch the two men had planned. After that, there do not appear to be any records of the men communicating with each other, though Mr. Epstein on occasion received emails in which acquaintances shared gossip about Mr. Black. Well, we only know about this email, right? Epstein could have had other emails, burner accounts that we don't even know about. And my guess is that he did. Later that November, the Miami Herald began publishing a series of articles about Mr. Epstein. In July of 2019, Mr. Mr. Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. Mr. Black played down their ties. Speaking to investors that month, he described the extent of the work that Mr. Epstein had performed for him. From time to time, Mr. Epstein has provided professional services to my family, partnership and related family entities involving tax, estate planning and philanthropic advice. Now, after everything that you just learned, after everything you knew already, are you buying that narrative? Do you really think that Jeffrey Epstein was only helping with tax advice or with estate planning? I have a very, very hard time believing that. And in fact, I don't believe it at all. So what do you folks think? Shoot me some emails and let me know what you think about Leon Black and the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.
- [55:38]
A
During Memorial Day at Lowe's Shop Household must haves for less save $80 on a char broil performance series 4 burner grill to chef up something special plus get up to 45% off select major appliances to keep things fresh. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Lowe's we help you save valid through 527 while supplies last selection varies by location. See lowe's.com for details. Visit your nearby Lowe's.