UPI News
Senate committee investigates billionaire Leon Black, $158 million paid to Jeffrey Epstein
By Sheri Walsh,
58 minutes agoJuly 25 (UPI) -- The Senate Finance Committee is investigating $158 million paid to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein by billionaire and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black for tax and estate-planning advice.
Finance committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden , D-Ore., revealed the investigation Tuesday, calling it an inquiry into how "ultra-high net worth persons avoid or evade paying federal taxes, including gift and estate taxes."
Wyden said the investigation uncovered serious tax issues, allowing Black -- who is a private equity investor -- to avoid more than $1 billion in future gift and estate taxes. The investigation alleges Black paid the late disgraced financier a total of $158 million in several installments between 2012 and 2017.
"Despite not being a certified public accountant or licensed tax attorney, Epstein was paid amounts that far exceeded what you paid other professional advisors, including some of the most high-priced legal counsel in the nation," Wyden wrote.
Epstein, a billionaire financier, died by suicide in August 2019 while in federal prison in New York, where he was being held on sex trafficking charges.
Wyden's letter to Black on Monday requests further clarification on a number of tax issues. . ."
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
- Black has so far provided "inadequate responses" to the committee and refused to detail his payments to Epstein, raising concerns about whether those payments were "were properly characterized as income or gifts for tax purposes," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote in a letter dated Monday.
- Black, a billionaire, is declining to give the committee anymore personal information.
"The transactions referenced in the Committee's letter were lawful in all respects, were conceived of, vetted and implemented by reputable law firms and tax and other advisors, and Mr. Black has fully paid all taxes owed to the government," the spokesperson said.
A separate memo responding to Wyden notes that Black has already answered more than a dozen of the committee's prior questions and produced more than 150 pages of his personal tax and estate documents.
- The committee's latest round of questions are "inappropriately invasive" and potentially overstep the panel's oversight role, Black's memo contended...
The territory in new court filings alleged that JPMorgan in 2004 had opened accounts and credit cards for two teenagers described as models and friends of Epstein."
Lawsuit accuses billionaire Leon Black of raping autistic teenager at Jeffrey Epstein's townhouse
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
The lawsuit alleges the unidentified plaintiff had been trafficked to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who in late 2021 was convicted of procuring underage girls for Epstein.
- The plaintiff, who is now in her late 30s, is described in the legal complaint as being born with mosaic Down syndrome and having a "developmental age" around 12 years old.
- The latest civil lawsuit against Black was filed days after The New York Times reported that he had agreed in January to pay $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle any potential claims from the territory's investigation of Epstein.
- "Today, because of legislative initiatives in NYS granting sexual violence victims the right to file claims previously barred by the statute of limitations, we were able to commence a legal action against Leon Black for harms committed years ago against our client Jane Doe when she was a minor," Wigdor partner Jeanne Christensen said in a statement.
- Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, in a statement called Tuesday's lawsuit "frivolous and sanctionable."
- "These vicious and defamatory lies, masquerading as allegations, have been intentionally manufactured by the Wigdor law firm as part of the firm's vendetta against Mr. Black for vigorously and successfully defending himself over the past two years," Estrich said.
- "Wigdor's prior case against Mr. Black was recently thrown out by the Court and this one will be too. These allegations — about an incident that supposedly took place 20 years ago — are totally made up, entirely uncorroborated and, as pleaded, squarely violate the statute of limitations."
Black's request to sanction Wigdor argued that the law firm has "repeatedly abused the court system to launder frivolous, unsubstantiated, and damaging accusations of sexual assault against Black across two lawsuits."
The bid for sanctions also references Guzel Ganieva, who was represented by Wigdor in a 2021 lawsuit accusing Black of sexual assault and defamation was dismissed in May. Ganieva reportedly fired Wigdor as her representative in March."
No comments:
Post a Comment