Leon Black: Blood on the Carpet

The money trail was documented - the decisions were made & No charges followed.

Apr 02, 2026

PART OF A SERIES
This is the first investigation in Last Page First’s institutional money series. It establishes the financial architecture: who paid Epstein, how much, when, and what that money bought. The next piece follows where the money moved — through MIT, through Silicon Valley, through the institutions Epstein needed most.

Part 2 Victim Journal Analysis out now: Read Here

On December 12, 2025, Vice President JD Vance swore in Leon Black’s son, Benjamin Black, as CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) — a federal agency now controlling $205 billion in American foreign investment.
Read the full investigation into the Black family here:
“The Black Family Chronicles”
This article cites the Dechert report figure of $158 million. In March 2026, the Senate Finance Committee (Wyden) increased that total to $170 million based on additional bank records.

Leon Black is not in prison and he is not under indictment. He has not been criminally charged for any crimes relating to the Epstein scandal. He sits on boards, moves money, and collects Van Goghs. In early 2026 he agreed to testify under oath in a civil proceeding — deposed for eight hours, five of which were reserved for victims’ attorneys.

However as much as Mr.Black would like, none of that changes what is in the federal files.

In February 2025 the Department of Justice released thousands of pages of internal documents from the Epstein investigation under court order from Judge Jed Rakoff. Dataset 12 includes FBI 302 interview reports, internal prosecutor emails, forensic bank records, attorney correspondence, and the decoded scrapbook journals of an unknown minor — a girl with Mosaic down syndrome and autism — who was trafficked through Epstein’s network from approximately age 13 to 17. Her identity is redacted throughout but her journals are not. (LPF deep dive into that is linked at the top of the article.)

Leon Black’s name appears in the Epstein files repeatedly. Not as a footnote and not as a passing contact like some of the names we find through the thousands of pages of documents. Leon Black is a named subject of active federal and state criminal referrals, as the alleged perpetrator in victim accounts corroborated by independent witnesses, and — in the victim’s own handwriting — as someone whose blood was on Jeffrey Epstein’s carpet.

This is what the files say about Leon Black.

WHO IS LEON BLACK

Leon Black co founded Apollo Global Management — one of the largest private equity firms on Earth, managing hundreds of billions in assets. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 after an internal investigation was commissioned by Apollo’s own conflicts committee and conducted by Dechert LLP. it is confirmed he paid Jeffrey Epstein at least $158 million between 2013 and 2017. Senate Finance Committee findings released in March 2026 put the total at $170 million — $12 million more than previously reported. The Dechert report is filed publicly with the SEC.

Black is among the world’s most significant private collectors of van Gogh paintings. He acquired the photography companies Lifetouch and Shutterfly through Apollo and he has a longtime administrative assistant named Melanie Spinella, who appears in federal records communicating with at least one victim on his behalf, and often coordinating with Epstein’s assistant, Leslie Groff. Leon Black also was on of those who wrote a message in the infamous birthday book belonging to Jeffrey Epstein — the Leslie Wexner was asked about during his deposition.

The Dechert report confirmed Black knew of Epstein’s 2008 conviction — charges related to procuring a minor for prostitution — and continued to pay him afterward. It confirmed Black paid Epstein more than he paid any other professional advisor and it found no evidence of criminal conduct by Black. Here is the real kicker though: the Dechert report was an internal investigation commissioned by Black’s own company, did not include any testimony from victims, and was not a law enforcement investigation.

The federal documents are something else entirely.

THE VICTIMS IN THE FEDERAL RECORD

Beginning in April 2021, federal investigators at the Southern District of New York began receiving referrals from attorney Jeanne M. Christensen of Wigdor LLP regarding clients who alleged sexual violence by Leon Black at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.

Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse at 9 East 71st Street Photo Source: Jim Henderson

The first victim — a woman in her 30s at the time of the alleged assault in the early 2000s — had been giving massages at Epstein’s townhouse for several months when Epstein introduced her to Mr.Black, telling her he could help her to get a job. She describes a violent sexual assault during the massage. Afterwards, Black called her and met her — she believes at the St. Regis hotel — where he gave her an envelope with $5000 in cash.

A second victim independently contacted Christensen after hearing about the first case. According to FBI notes from August 2021, this woman told Christensen that Black had raped her violently in 2001 at Epstein’s townhouse. The FBI documented the details: the physical description of the assault — including a specific and unusual pattern of biting — matched the first victim’s account in details that had never been made public. The second victim did not know the first.

A third victim — an unknown minor with Mosaic Down syndrome and autism — was referred to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and then to SDNY beginning in 2023. Federal call notes document that she was driven from New Jersey to Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse and introduced to Black. She was told he was a “VIP” and a “special friend of Jeffrey’s.” The brutal assault that followed required medical attention. The girl write that she bled, and that she was not taken to get medical treatment. She was flown out of New York city the next day.

A March 2024 letter from attorney Christensen to federal prosecutors explains what had taken months to fully emerge, and it is horrendous — the girl’s biological mother had been forcing her to perform sexual acts with adult men since she was very young. When the assault by Black left her bleeding — Epstein, Maxwell, and her parents were angry at her, the victim, for disrupting their weekend. Her parents drove her home to Virginia. She kept journals — which as I wrote above — I have reported on seperately and they are linked at the top of the page.

“He threw me on the floor and blood all over Jeffrey’s carpet and I am the issue? Who the fuck bites someone? Sick. No one is that important and Leon can go fuck himself.”
— Decoded journal entry, unknown minor victim | EFTA02731427

THE BANK RECORDS

Federal documents include bank statements submitted by Wigdor LLP to prosecutors in May 2021, documenting wire transfers from accounts identified as “Leon J. Black,” “J. Black Trust,” and “E Trust” to a redacted victim’s account. The transfers range from $15000 to $167000 dollars. Transfers from the E Trust are documented from November 2015 through 2021.

In October 2019, the victim texted Black asking for a copy of the NDA — She retained the firm Liston Abramson to attempt to obtain it. Their March 2020 letter to Black stated the firm had been retained to investigate “certain matters related to your prior interactions” with their client and requested copies of all written agreements between them.

Victim requesting NDA from Leon Black — EFTA2731576

A text message from Leon Black to the victim, in DOJ Dataset 12. Black writes that statements made about him are "not true" and asks her to call him. The message is preserved in the same federal record as the journals.
— EFTA02731525

Black has not disputed the payments — his position has been that they represent a consensual adult arrangement. The victim’s position, and that of her attorneys, is that they were a function of the trafficking relationship.

THE MACHINE: WHAT THE MONEY BUILT

Black’s payments to Epstein were not made in isolation. They ran from 2013 to 2017 — the same years Epstein was actively using cash and institutional access to purchase legitimacy at Harvard, at MIT, and across Silicon Valley. The money Black paid did not stay in Epstein’s pocket. It funded a parallel infrastructure: introductions, access, and the credibility that came from being associated with figures like Black himself.

A day schedule released in the DOJ files — EFTA00334425 — documents a single day in November 2015 in which Epstein had breakfast at 9am with Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, and a 4pm meeting with Leon Black. Both men appear on the same day’s calendar. This is not coincidence of association, it is documentation of simultaneous operation: the money and the institutional access running on the same tracks, on the same day.

In June 2016, Epstein ordered custom sweatshirts for a list of associates documented in EFTA02301991. The list includes Leon Black, Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and members of the Rothschild family. These are not separate stories, they are the same story told from different institutional vantage points.

EFTA02301991

THE JOURNALS

The unknown minor kept scrapbook journals during the years she was trafficked — written almost entirely in code. Encoded passages with letters scrambled. Cut-up magazine clippings rearranged to carry new meanings. Handwritten annotations naming men by name. Attorneys at Wigdor LLP decoded significant passages and submitted both originals and translations to federal prosecutors and to Judge Jed Rakoff as part of the JPMorgan Chase Epstein compensation claim.

The journals name Leon Black directly. In one decoded entry she writes about walking down Madison Avenue after the assault, her mother furious, Ghislaine Maxwell having prioritized Black’s importance over her health. She writes that blood was on Epstein’s carpet and she was treated as the problem.

In another entry, against a National Geographic photograph of the New York City skyline dated June 2004, she annotates: “So sad this city could be beautiful if it weren’t filled with monsters. The blood from Leon is no longer there.” The date of the clipping is consistent with attorneys’ identification of the Leon Black assault as occurring in Year 16 of her life.

EFTA02731393

The journals also document multiple pregnancies across the years of trafficking — at least one live birth, a miscarriage, and multiple procedures. Black is named in the same journals that document what his access to Epstein’s network cost this girl across four years of her life. The two records — the institutional and the personal — are not parallel. They are the same document.

Forensic examination ordered by Judge Rakoff found the journals were written in gel pen. No evidence of recent fabrication was found. More than 20 people wrote in them contemporaneously. Their content is consistent with the independent accounts of the two adult victims.

Leon Black’s attorney Susan Estrich wrote a letter to Judge Rakoff in February 2024 objecting to the compensation claim. As of the most recent documents in the public record, the court had not issued a final ruling.

The full journal analysis — every named abuser, every documented pregnancy, the complete decoded record — is available to paid subscribers.

THE INVESTIGATION — AND WHERE IT STALLED

Between 2021 and 2024, prosecutors at SDNY and the Manhattan DA’s Office were in active coordination about potential criminal charges against Black. The SDNY Civil Rights Unit took over all trafficking matters by mid-2023. The Manhattan DA’s office communicated to SDNY in January 2022 that charges were “unlikely” while the investigation remained open.

In February 2024, CNBC reported that one claimant had dropped a rape allegation against Black connected to Epstein’s Manhattan mansion. That development is reflected in federal correspondence now part of Dataset 12. Separately, documents reference a 2022 Jane Doe settlement in which Brad Edwards — who had represented Epstein victims — was involved in negotiating a resolution with Black. Internal federal prosecutor notes flag this arrangement and compare it to precedents in other cases.

In July 2023, after Black settled with the U.S. Virgin Islands for $62.5 million over the Epstein investigation, Christensen wrote directly to SDNY: “It’s outrageous that criminal charges have not been brought against him. I’ve heard one lawyer represents ten women that he sexually assaulted.” The Civil Rights Unit responded. They set up a call. As of October 2024 — the most recent documents in the public record — no charges had been filed.

In March 2026, Senate Finance Committee findings put Black’s total payments to Epstein at $170 million and identified major banking institutions that waited years to file required reports on the transactions. Black gave sworn testimony in a civil deposition in March 2026 in the Epstein victims’ lawsuit against Bank of America. Trial is scheduled for May 2026.

Black’s son, Ben Black, was sworn into the Trump administration by Vice President JD Vance and now serves as CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. No member of the Black family has been charged with any crime. The investigation into Leon Black remains, as of this publication, formally open and functionally stalled.

THE INTELLIGENCE CONTEXT

In October 2020 — fourteen months after Epstein’s death, while Ghislaine Maxwell’s prosecution was being built and the SDNY was still receiving active criminal referrals — a formally registered FBI informant filed an intelligence report that named Leon Black.

The document is an FD-1023, a Confidential Human Source reporting form. It is not a public tip submitted through a hotline. It is not an anonymous letter. An FD-1023 is produced by a vetted, handled source — someone assigned a formal source ID by the FBI, managed by a case agent, and whose reporting is reviewed and approved through a supervisory chain before it enters the investigative record. This one carries source ID S-00099701, was handled by the Los Angeles Field Office Squad 101, and was routed into two federal files: the primary Epstein investigation case number 50D-NY-3027571, and a companion file carrying the suffix INTELPRODS — a designation indicating the material was processed as intelligence product, not merely as a criminal lead.

FD-1023 CHS Reporting Document, Los Angeles Field Office. DOJ Epstein Library, Dataset 9, EFTA00090314. This document is a formal FBI confidential human source report, not a public tip. Source: Department of Justice Epstein Library

Among the matters the source reported, that attorney Alan Dershowitz — Epstein’s defense counsel during his 2007–2008 Florida prosecution — told then U.S Attorney Alex Acosta that Epstein “belonged to both U.S and allied intelligence services.” Acosta is the same prosecutor who authorized the non-prosecution agreement granting Epstein, and all unnamed coconspirators federal immunity. Acosta denied making this statement under oath in multiple proceedings. The claim has not been independently corroborated. It is documented here because it appears in a formal FBI intelligence file — and because Acosta has never adequately explained the immunity clause.

A confidential FBI source alleged Acosta was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence.' Acosta denied this under oath. Source: US Department of Labor

The same report names Black directly. The source cites investigative reporting by Jed Shugerman and Whitney Webb alleging that Black owns Constellis, the private military contractor formerly known as Blackwater, which has faced accusations of involvement in arms and human trafficking operations. The source notes that Black “inexplicably stood by Jeffrey Epstein, recently giving him $50 million” — a figure drawn from New York Times reporting available at the time of the filing. That figure has since been superseded: the Dechert report confirmed $158 million; Senate Finance Committee findings in March 2026 put the total at $170 million. The CHS report further notes that Apollo Global Management lent Jared Kushner $184 million during the 666 Fifth Avenue financial crisis — placing Black, Epstein, and Kushner in a single paragraph of a federal intelligence document.

Apollo Global Management, which Black co-founded and led until stepping down in 2021. Apollo’s own conflicts committee commissioned the Dechert investigation that confirmed the $158 million in Epstein payments. The firm’s investors were told they never had access to photographs of victims. That denial is in the record. Photo Source: Kevin Roche

What this all establishes is that Black’s name, his money, and his documented relationship with Epstein were significant enough to surface in FBI counterintelligence-adjacent reporting in October 2020 — filed by a vetted source, approved by a supervisory chain, and preserved in an active federal case file.

The $170 million is documented. The victims are documented. The non-indictment is documented. What the intelligence files suggest about why Epstein was protected, and by whom, remains as of this publication unanswered.

WHAT THE DOJ RELEASED

The documents in Dataset 12 are federal investigative records — FBI 302s, internal prosecutor emails, attorney correspondence, forensic bank records, decoded journal translations — released under a court order from Judge Rakoff in the JPMorgan Chase settlement as part of a broader effort toward transparency about Epstein’s network and the individuals connected to it.

Dataset 9, which contains the FD-1023 referenced above, was released as part of the same DOJ Epstein Library and is publicly accessible at justice.gov/epstein.

These are public records and hey name Leon Black. They name many others. The journal analysis piece coming 05/06/2025 covers the full scope of what the minor victim documented across four years and three journals. READ NOW

Editors Note: This article is based entirely on documents released by the Department of Justice and the publicly filed Dechert report. Every claim is traceable to a specific document in Dataset 12 or the SEC filing. Leon Black has not been charged with any crime. He has denied the allegations in civil proceedings and has given sworn testimony. His attorneys have challenged the credibility of victim accounts and the journals before Judge Rakoff.

None of that changes what the documents say. Power has a long history of outlasting accountability. The survivors named in these records existed first.

NEXT IN THE SERIES

The money Black paid Epstein did not stay in Epstein’s pocket. It moved far, through MIT, Silicon Valley and through the institutions that gave Epstein the credibility to keep operating. The next investigation follows where it went: Joi Ito, the MIT Media Lab, and the machine built with other people’s money and other people’s names.

Read Joi Ito expose now

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