For Leon Black is an Honorable Man

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You can read the full report filed by Dechert LLP on behalf of the Board of Directors of Apollo Global Management here.

We are told by the lawyers hired by the Board of Directors of Apollo Global Management to investigate the Chairman of that same Board of Directors that the $158 MILLION Leon Black transferred to his personal friend and convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was for “legitimate advice on trust and estate planning, tax issues, issues relating to artwork, Black’s airplane, Black’s yacht, and other similar matters”.

We are told that the bulk of the funds were transferred “on an ad hoc basis based on Black’s perceived value of Epstein’s work”, with no agreements signed or unsigned. We are told that the bulk of the funds were paid for tax advice that would only realize potential gains well in the future, advice that was later determined to originate not with Epstein but with Black’s regular tax lawyers.

Payments of this magnitude and in this manner seem unlike the behavior of any enormously wealthy person in the history of the world, particularly a man whose enormous wealth has been notoriously built on precisely the opposite behavior, but Leon Black says this is the truth.

And Leon Black is an honorable man.

We are told by the lawyers hired by the Board of Directors of Apollo Global Management to investigate the Chairman of that same Board of Directors that they have “seen no evidence that Black or any employee of the Family Office or Apollo was involved in any way with Epstein’s criminal activities at any time”.

We are also told that Black’s friendship with Epstein goes back to the mid-1990s, and that before and after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for solicitation and procuring of minors for prostitution, Black “regularly visited” Epstein at his New York townhouse for afternoon “social visits”, as well as Epstein’s Paris apartment, his Palm Beach home, his Santa Fe ranch, and his private Caribbean island.

Yet Leon Black says that he merely saw Epstein as “a confirmed bachelor with eclectic tastes, who often employed attractive women”, a man whose criminal offenses were “limited to a single instance of soliciting a 17 year old prostitute” who “had shown Epstein false identification suggesting that she was not underage”. Yes, Leon Black believes “in giving people second chances”.

And Leon Black is an honorable man.

They’re all honorable men. Men of stature. Lions of Wall Street.

Leon Black. Les Wexner. Jes Staley. Glenn Dubin. Larry Summers.

I speak not to disprove what Leon Black spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.

I know that the evil of Jeffrey Epstein would not have been possible without the actions of these honorable men, regardless of what remorse might be in their words today.

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with the American dream that once was,
And I must pause till it come back to me.