Billionaire financier Leon Black abruptly resigns as head of Apollo Global Management after revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein Secured the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing him of sexual misconduct by a former mistress.
Guzel Ganieva sued Blake in 2021, alleging he picked her out at an event for International Women’s Day in 2008 and promised her a job interview at Goldman Sachs at the start of a relationship that developed into abuse.
But a New York judge on Wednesday dismissed Ganieva’s lawsuit, ruling her claim was legally flawed and barred anyway under the terms of a 2015 nondisclosure agreement.
The court added that under the agreement, Ganieva received about $9.5 million from Black but received nothing, meaning she cannot now claim she signed the contract under duress.
In a statement released shortly after the ruling, Black said Ganeva “was able to manipulate the legal system and the media” in a way that was “very painful for my family, my business partners and friends, and me.”
The lawsuit, which contains graphic details of the abuse Ganieva claims she suffered at the hands of Blake, has garnered a lot of media attention since it was filed.
In a set of court documents, Ganieva detailed a hypothetical trip to Florida in which she claimed Black tried to force her to have sex with convicted sex offender Epstein. Flight logs maintained by Black prove that the trip never took place.
The ruling by New York State Judge David Cohen marks a victory for Black in his long-running battle with the Wigdor law firm, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Ganieva, as well as Cheri Pierson, another woman who accused the billionaire of rape.
Black has asked the court to punish Wigdor for filing the lawsuit on Pierson’s behalf, saying Pierson “abuses the court system to whitewash trivial, unsubstantiated and damaging allegations of sexual assault” into the public record. He also sued Wigdor and Ganieva in what he called a “fraudulent” lawsuit. Last month, Ganieva fired Wigdor as her attorney.
Wigdow has previously described Black’s attempt to get the company sanctioned as “pathetic PR” to distract attention.
The defeat of Ganieva’s lawsuit marks the end of a remarkable chapter in which sensational allegations about Black’s personal life have intersected with a scramble for control of Apollo, one of the most important private equity groups in the United States.
Blake, who co-founded Apollo in 1990, sued his former top lieutenant, Josh Harris, last year, accusing him of conspiring with Ganeva to damage his reputation and oust him from the $513 billion investment firm. Group’s top job.
But a federal judge dismissed the case against Harris, calling Black’s legal theory “conclusive, vague, indirect, clever and lovely.”