Yahoo Finance Leon Black's legal battle against revenge plot to 'take him down'
Ousted from his own business and facing toxic allegations of rape, Leon Black has for months suggested he is actually the victim of a conspiracy.
The Wall Street billionaire has now publicly named his adversaries, alleging his former right hand man and one of New York’s top spinners are behind a malicious plot to “take him down”.
The extraordinary claim is the latest twist in Black’s high-stakes court battle with Guzel Ganieva, the Russian former model who claims the investor sexually abused her.
It also casts fresh light on a power struggle at the top of Apollo Global Management, the $450bn (£330bn) private equity giant Black founded more than three decades ago.
Black, 70, resigned from leading Apollo last year amid outrage over his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
He now claims the lawsuit brought by Ganieva, 38, is part of an elaborate revenge plot hatched by Josh Harris - his former protégé at Apollo who failed to succeed him. Harris was one of Apollo’s three top partners until he was passed over for the top job last year and is now reported to be laying the groundwork to raise his own fund.
Legal documents filed by Black’s lawyers allege that Harris, a sports fanatic and co-owner of the New Jersey Devils hockey team, was aided in his efforts by Steve Rubenstein, the well-connected publicist to New York’s financial elite.
The allegations were spelled out for the first time as after Black’s lawyers filed sweeping requests for the phone records of Ganieva and Rubenstein, which they argue could vindicate the billionaire’s theories.
“Ms Ganieva’s smear campaign is an off-shoot of a malicious, broader campaign launched by a business rival of Mr Black, in collaboration with others, to exploit any and all avenues to harm Mr Black,” Black’s lawyers argue.
“Mr Black is entitled to probe and prove up the nexus between Mr Harris’ public relations team and Ms Ganieva’s emergence, so that he can show that the false allegations against him are a product of a fabricated scheme aimed at financially benefiting Ms Ganieva and her sponsor.”
Rubenstein says he has never had any form of contact with Ganieva, while Harris on Wednesday described his former mentor’s allegations as “desperate” and “unhinged”.
Whatever the truth, Black’s fortune and reputation are now riding on the outcome. He was once described as “the most feared man" in finance and founded Apollo in 1990 with former colleagues from Drexel Burnham Lambert, a collapsed junk bond trader.
Harris and Marc Rowan, both Drexel alumni, later joined and their success at the investment giant - dubbed “Wall Street’s apex predator” - persuaded Black to grant them co-founder status.
But by Black’s telling, Harris grew to resent his mentor’s status as “first among equals” - and spotted a chance to supplant him when controversy struck.
In 2020 it emerged Black had a long-running relationship with Epstein, who he paid $158m over a five-year period for financial advice.
He is also said to have socialised with him, visited his private island in the Caribbean and consulted him on personal matters - including troubles with Ganieva.
The revelations prompted Apollo to bring in an outside law firm to investigate and, behind the scenes, a boardroom struggle for the company’s future kicked off.
Harris is said to have urged Black to step down as chief executive and chairman at one point - a suggestion that was rejected.
It was at this time that Harris also brought in Rubenstein to “shape his own profile… and to help seed harmful stories” about Black in the media, according to the account from Black’s lawyers.
Yet when it was announced last February that Black would step down from day-to-day business come summer, following the law firm’s findings, Harris was not chosen as his successor but Rowan.
Black also remained at the company as executive chairman, leaving Harris “shunted aside… the jilted loser”, Black’s lawyers argue.
Weeks later, however, this plan was derailed: Ganieva published allegations on Twitter that Black had sexually abused her for years. Days later he resigned from Apollo and his coveted post as chairman of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
In a statement at the time, Black admitted to “foolishly” having an affair with Ganieva but insisted “any allegation of harassment or any other inappropriate behaviour towards her is completely fabricated”.
He added: “The truth is that I have been extorted by Ms Ganieva for many years and I made substantial monetary payments to her, based on her threats to go public concerning our relationship, in an attempt to spare my family from public embarrassment.”
Ganieva followed with a lawsuit alleging she suffered violent sexual abuse at Black’s hands, and seeking damages for what she said were attempts by the billionaire to smear her reputation.
A single mother who had moved from Russia, she had first met Black in 2008 after arriving in the US.
According to Ganieva, he used his power and wealth to flatter and seduce her but later became manipulative and sexually violent, assaulting and raping her on multiple occasions.
On one occasion, he is said to have flown her to Epstein's Palm Beach mansion in Florida and tried to get her to sleep with both men - an offer she claims she refused.
Ganieva’s lawyers argue she lived in fear of the 6”5 tall Black, who was controlling and would belittle her. He is also said to have provided loans worth $1m in a bid to achieve “financial control” over her. Black’s lawyers claim the accounts are “demonstrably false”.
In 2015, he persuaded her to sign a non-disclosure agreement which Ganieva says she did not fully understand and was not given a copy of.
And, according to her claims, he threatened to “destroy her life” unless she also took hush money payments of $100,000 per month.
Black, who has an estimated fortune of $12.3bn, admits handing Ganieva millions of dollars to keep their affair secret - payments that ended in April 2021 after she accused him of sexual assault.
But in filings made this week, his lawyers claimed the timing of Ganieva’s allegations last year and the media’s “hyper-awareness” of them were “no coincidence”.
“After long enjoying the fruits of her extortion, she suddenly surfaced in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar succession fight at Apollo, where Mr Harris’ attempt to use allegations of sexual impropriety to oust Mr Black already are a matter of public record,” they argue.
They also allege Rubenstein, who had cultivated relationships with reporters at outlets such as the New York Post and the New York Times, gave advance warning to journalists about the pending litigation and fanned the flames with rumours.
These allegations have been dismissed as “pure speculation” by Ganieva’s lawyers, while representatives for Harris and Rubenstein insist they have had no relationship whatsoever with Ganieva at any time.
“These, and the rest of the claims filed by Mr Black’s attorneys, offer a concocted, ever-evolving conspiracy theory, packed with false information, and are not based in reality,” said Evan Farber, Rubenstein’s lawyer.
Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for Harris, also said the claims were “baseless, untrue and totally unsupported”, adding: “Simply put, Mr Harris has nothing whatsoever to do with the deeply troubling situation Mr Black finds himself in, and any statement or implication otherwise is unhinged at best.”
If Black’s requests of phone records are granted, his claims of contact between Rubenstein, Harris and Ganieva could come to light. But the web of accusations remains tangled.
