Billionaire Leon Black Made a $158 Million Payment to Jeffrey Epstein. Senators Want to Know Why
The Senate Finance Committee is looking into whether billionaire investor Leon Black’s $158 million payment to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was part of a greater strategy to avoid paying over $1 billion in federal gift and estate taxes.
Black, the co-founder and former CEO of Apollo Global Management, paid Epstein in several installments between 2012 and 2017, according to findings from an ongoing investigation led by Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee.
Wyden revealed Tuesday that the investigation into Black’s dealings with Epstein began in June 2022 and was “prompted by inconsistencies” in a report led by Dechert LLP, a law firm the Apollo board of directors hired to examine Black’s ties to Epstein.
“The payments were inexplicably large; well in excess of what Black paid any other financial advisors and far higher than the median compensation of Fortune 500 CEOs at the time,” Wyden said in a statement released Tuesday.
Source: CNN
