Billionaire Leon Black sues rape accuser and law firm, alleging defamation and racketeering - Yahoo Finance
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Leon Black has escalated his battle against a former model who accused him of rape, filing a lawsuit on Thursday accusing her and her law firm of defamation and racketeering conspiracy.
In the complaint, lawyers for the former Apollo Global Management Inc chief executive accused Guzel Ganieva and the Wigdor law firm of engaging in a "criminal enterprise," including by falsely linking Black to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"Knowing that to him, and in his world, reputation matters, they set about to destroy him and make him pay anything to make them stop," the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court said. "They are planning to line their own pockets with the results."
Ganieva sued Black in a New York state court in June, accusing him of rape and other abuse, forcing her to sign a 2015 nondisclosure agreement about their 6-1/2-year relationship, and defaming her by claiming she tried to extort him.
"This is an obvious act of retaliation," Ganieva's lawyer Jeanne Christensen said in an email about Thursday's lawsuit. "We look forward to defending ourselves against these ludicrous allegations."
Black, 70, has forcefully denied https://www.reuters.com/world/us/leon-black-rejects-russian-womans-claims-violent-behavior-files-countersuit-2021-07-19 the claims of Ganieva, with whom he had what he now calls a "regrettable" consensual relationship from 2008 to 2014.
Those claims included that Black tried to arrange for Ganieva, now in her late 30s, to have sex with Epstein https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/leon-black-says-accuser-eyeing-payday-made-up-jeffrey-epstein-claims-2021-09-08 in 2008.
Black has said he paid Ganieva $100,000 a month for several years not to discuss their relationship after she tried to extort him of $100 million. Those payments stopped after Ganieva tweeted about Black in March.
source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-leon-black-sues-rape-000255860.html
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