NBC NEWS
A federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday accuses billionaire Leon Black of raping a then-16-year-old girl with Down syndrome and autism in 2002 at the Manhattan townhouse of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
An attorney for Black, who co-founded the investment firm Apollo Global Management Inc. and was an associate of Epstein’s, has denied the allegations, calling them “frivolous and sanctionable.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, was trafficked to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
The plaintiff, who is now in her late 30s, was born with mosaic Down syndrome and has a “developmental age” of around 12 years old, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that she was preparing to give Black a massage when he pinned her down and penetrated her with “adult toys” in an attack that left her bleeding. It states that Epstein later found her crying, but refused her request to see a doctor, saying Maxwell would take care of her instead.
Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, denied the allegations, accusing Wigdor LLP, the law firm behind the suit, of having a “vendetta” against Black related to multiple cases.
Estrich, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, said in a statement to CNBC that her client had never met the plaintiff…
Connect with us on our socials: