FILE PHOTO: Jeffrey Epstein is seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., U.S., on December 19, 2025 via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY/File Photo
As reporters continue digging through the millions of pages in the files around the case for trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, The New York Times uncovered on Monday that he was also serving as a go-between for billionaire Leon Black and a yoga instructor.
The report cited an email showing that hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed from Epstein to the woman from Black.
“He said that now he does it through you,” the woman wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. The funds sent through Epstein were marked as "tax and estate-planning services." However, he did more than "modernize" Black's finances or cut his taxes. Indeed, normal firms would charge significantly less for such services, even though they were navigating billions of dollars.
Black did more to ensure Epstein's "opulent lifestyle" after he became a registered sex offender than anyone, the report said. Then Epstein helped Black figure out how to obscure millions of dollars he paid to women, avoid taxes on some of those payments and handle things if one of Black's women was audited by the IRS.
The two were also plotting how they could surveil or intimidate the women. One in particular was a woman alleging that Black had abused her and was threatening to go public. When Black's wife left him due to all of the infidelity, Epstein was there to help there too.
"Mr. Black paid about $20 million to a dozen women, at least some of whom he’d had sexual relationships with," the Times reported, citing the recently released files
Speaking about himself in the third person, Epstein summed it up in a 2017 email to Black: "Mr. Epstein’s job, as he saw it, was partly about 'saving you from yourself,'" the report cited.
Given the long relationship between Black and Epstein, the House Oversight and Reform Committee has asked him to answer questions before the committee. However, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or.) has been looking into Black for years, searching through the Black and Epstein relationship. He alleged that Epstein was hiding the payments for Black. He said that he never believed that the sum of cash that Black gave Epstein could have totaled as much as $170 million.
“I think this all comes down to hush money,” Wyden said. It also helped Epstein do business that would allow him “the kinds of things that would keep Black ahead of the law.”
Black's lawyers call the take absurd, the Times cited.
Black co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management in the 1990s. The company hired a law firm, which characterized Epstein's work for Black as "the most important service that he had provided to Mr. Black."
(He stepped down from Apollo in 2021.) The law firm, Dechert, concluded that Mr. Epstein’s tax and estate-planning services had been legitimate and vetted contemporaneously by well-qualified lawyers.
Black claimed many of the payouts for the women's "gifts" for tax purposes. They totaled into the hundreds of thousands. However, Black had no involvement in the "gifts" that went through Epstein. So, Black's accountant questioned whether he could legitimately call it a "gift." If they weren't gifts, the women would have to report it as income. Epstein came up with the idea of using the estate to pay the women as gifts, the Times reported.
A Russian woman, Black, had an affair and threatened to go public, alleging sexual abuse, in 2015, unless he paid her $100 million. Epstein helped Black "draft a menacing email" to her.
“I felt it necessary to contact some friends in FSB,” the message claimed, talking about the Russian security service. He alleged she was trying to "blackmail a us businessman" and would be "dealt with extremely harshly." They offered to pay her $50,000 per month for two years. It's unknown if Black even read the email Epstein drafted or if he sent it to the woman. Indeed, Epstein sent an he email to Russian government official Sergei Belyakov about the woman.
Belyakov told Epstein that limiting her access to the United States “would be a great threat to her business," the Times said.
Brad Karp, the chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss, a trusted Black adviser, also worked to block the woman from the U.S. Epstein had relationships tracked that were connected to the woman, including her young son.
Epstein then suggested raising the sum to $100,000 a month for several years. That worked and a deal was reached. They crafted the paperwork to avoid taxes.
Epstein then profited $20 million from dealing with the matter, the Times said.
Yet, in 2016, Black had flagged the IRS with his lavish gifts to one of his women, a model from Ukraine that Epstein had known since 2010. Black was giving her millions and Epstein focused on her audit.
Tension boiled over between the men in 2017 when Epstein complained he wasn't being fully appreciated despite his $170 million score. Epstein mentioned a rumor that Black was using cocaine to one of his legal advisors, but Black said that it was Epstein who was spreading the rumor. Black was irate, not having used drugs in over 40 years. He claimed Epstein was "out of control."
In a long rambling email to Black, Epstein alleged that "something is wrong" after he and Black met and Black “failed to even buy me lunch.”
They remained loosely affiliated with the last email coming on Nov. 5, 2018. Epstein wasn't arrested until July 2019. Black told investors that Epstein had only done tax work for him and that was the extent of their relationship.
