'Turn the screws': Abuse between Epstein and his biggest financial backer revealed

A slate of emails collected by the New York Times reveals a period of grinding stress between Jeffrey Epstein and his biggest financial supporter, billionaire Leon Black.

The chairman of the board of Apollo Global Management had been backing away from paying Epstein $40 million a year for various advisory work after Epstein’s first Florida indictment related to charges of underage sex.

“So Mr. Epstein threw a tantrum,” the Times reports. “ … The typo-strewn tirade was one of dozens of previously unreported emails … in which Mr. Epstein hectored Mr. Black, at times demanding tens of millions of dollars beyond the $150 million he had already been paid.”

And the pressure campaign appeared to work. Black continued to fork over tens of millions of dollars in fees and loans. After Epstein served jail time for soliciting prostitution from a minor, many of his contacts backed away. But not Black, who “kept Epstein afloat for years,” according to the Times. Eventually Black was pushed out of the private equity firm he co-founded over his ties to Epstein.

“The two men had been personally entwined for more than two decades. When a former girlfriend accused Mr. Black of sexual assault, he turned to Mr. Epstein for advice about paying her millions of dollars to keep it quiet,” said the Times, according to court records. “Another woman said in a lawsuit that Mr. Black had raped her at Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. She eventually dropped the lawsuit.”

“And, for reasons that are unknown, Mr. Black wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to at least three women who were associated with Mr. Epstein,” the Times added, also according to court documents and notes taken by congressional investigators that were shared with The Times.

In one email, a frustrated Epstein boasted of his protective services to Black: "If you reflect on your financial life, you have been kept safe, had remarkable results and no disasters."

Their intimate tangle of machinations might explain how Epstein could berate Black so abusively in letters that sometimes referred to his children as “r-------” for supposedly making a mess of his estate.

“The emails … sent in 2015 and 2016 to Mr. Black through his personal assistant, as well as to a handful of his advisers, show another dimension of Mr. Epstein’s cruelty,” the Times reports. “While he was known for ingratiating himself with the rich and powerful, he could also veer into nastiness and was willing to turn the screws on his biggest client.”

Read the New York Times report at this link.