Art billionaire and collector Leon Black investigated over financial dealings with Epstein

Leon Black, the bigwig American investor and art collector, is the latest high profile figure to be dragged into the Jeffrey Epstein debacle. The sexagenarian who owns a version of Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream (and who reportedly paid $119.9 million for it, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction at that time) is under scrutiny from officials in the US Virgin Islands over his decades-long ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Black, who is the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, known as MoMA, and founder of the Wall Street investment firm Apollo Global Management, is the subject of civil subpoenas (or witness summons) being sought by the territory’s attorney-general, according to the New York Times. They want Black to hand over information about his long-running business ties to the convicted sex offender, Epstein, who was found dead in jail last August.

The subpoenas, copies of which were filed with the court, seek financial statements and tax returns for a number of entities, including his management company Black Family Partners and Elysium Management that oversees his $8.3 billion fortune and private art collection, which features work by Raphael, Daniel Bomberg and Picasso.

The New York Times reports that Mr Black has said that Mr Epstein provided him with ‘advice on tax strategy, estate planning and philanthropy’, but has provided no further details. A representative for Mr Black, one of the most powerful men on Wall Street, said the financier had no further comment.

Mr Black has a lengthy business partnership with Epstein, the paper claimed, including millions in fees from Black-owned entities to the Southern Trust Company, a vehicle Epstein set up in the Virgin Islands in 2013. Records show it received $184 million in fees between 2013 and 2018 but how much came from Mr Black is unknown.

There is no suggestion that the investigation into Mr Black, who privately acquired Phaidon Press, a fine art book publisher in 2012, relates to anything other than his business dealings with Epstein. Mr Black is married to Debra Ressler, a Broadway producer and the sister of Antony Ressler, an American billionaire and private equity tycoon, and together they have four children.