As the clock ticked down to the public release of the names of 177 of sex-trafficker connected to Jeffrey Epstein‘s, it was perhaps not surprising that billionaire financier Leon Black should be spotted packing his bags and getting out of town.
Seen in these exclusive pictures obtained by DailyMail.com, Black, 72, and his wife, Debra, 69, loaded luggage into three cars before heading off into the New York night in the last days of 2023.
Earlier in the day, Debra had perused the boutiques of Manhattan’s swanky Madison Avenue, picking up items from the late Princess Diana‘s favorite hosiery store, Wolford.
Black, who traveled with his security detail, carried his wife’s purse to a waiting car and fussed with a monogrammed suit-carrier that bore his initials before the couple and their entourage escaped the city.
Black was not named in the first tranche of documents released by Judge Loretta Preska on Wednesday but more papers are set to be released in upcoming days.
Just because a person’s name turns up in the documents it does not necessarily mean they have committed a crime.
His dealings with the disgraced former financier have long since haunted Black, once one of the City’s most powerful executives as the former CEO of Apollo Global Management.
In a 2020 letter to Apollo shareholders, Black expressed regret for the association which continues to plague him but said that the relationship only involved professional services such as ‘estate planning, tax and philanthropic endeavors’.
The following year, in 2021, an independent investigation into his connection to Epstein – commissioned by Apollo Global Management, the private equity Black co-founded in 1990 – found no evidence that he was involved with Epstein’s criminal activities in any way.
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