Leon Black paid model to keep affair quiet
Leon Black, the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, on Thursday denied sexual-harassment allegations made against him by a former model and said their "consensual affair" had nothing to do with his departure from the firm.
He also said he had paid the woman, Guzel Ganieva, to keep
their affair a secret.
The New York Post reported earlier Thursday that his exit
from Apollo on March 22 happened days after Ganieva's accusations came to
light.
Ganieva tweeted on March 17 that Black had "sexually
harassed and abused" her "for years." She said that it began in
2008 when she met him to discuss work and that she "refused his sexual
advances" at the time.
"I was bullied, manipulated, threatened, and
coerced," Ganieva said, adding, "I was forced to sign an NDA in
2015."
Following the Post's report, Black issued the statement
denying the allegations and saying they were unrelated to his departure.
"I foolishly had a consensual affair with Ms. Ganieva
that ended more than seven years ago," Black said in the statement,
according to Bloomberg. "Any allegation of harassment or any other
inappropriate behavior towards her is completely fabricated."
Black, 69, said he had given Ganieva money to keep quiet
about their affair. "The truth is that I have been extorted by Ms. Ganieva
for many years and I made substantial monetary payments to her, based on her
threats to go public concerning our relationship, in an attempt to spare my
family from public embarrassment," he said.
He said that the situation was "personal" and that
it had "nothing to do with Apollo or my decision to step away from the
firm."
Ganieva told Bloomberg, "I stand by what I said in my
tweets on March 17."
The Wall Street billionaire stepped down as the CEO and
chairman of Apollo after an independent investigation found that he had paid
$158 million to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey
Epstein from 2012 to 2017. It found that neither Black nor Apollo employees
were involved in Epstein's criminal activities.
Jay Clayton, the former Securities and Exchange Commission
chairman, is now the chairman, and Apollo's cofounder Marc Rowan has taken over
as CEO.
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