Leon Black, chairman and chief executive officer of Apollo Global Management, in Beverly Hills, California, on April 27, 2015. PATRICK T. FALLON / LE MONDE / BLOOMBERG / GETTY IMAGES
On May 2, 2012, the auctioneer made a final bid at a busy Sotheby's auction in New York. "Now, the world record for any work of art sold at auction is this painting, Edvard Munch's The Scream," he said. The iconic work by the Norwegian painter had just been sold for $120 million to an anonymous buyer. Two months later, the press revealed the buyer was Leon Black, an American billionaire and art enthusiast, founder of the powerful asset management company Apollo Global Management and vice president of the board of directors at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Well before the secret was out, Jeffrey Epstein already knew the identity of the buyer. "Client buying a huge artwork (...). Need answer, monday night. (The Scream, for your info only)," he wrote to his banker 10 days after the sale. In his terse style, he questioned him about the tax arrangement that Black might use to hold the artwork.
The millions of documents from the Epstein archives released at the end of January by the United States Department of Justice, which include correspondence between the two men, financial statements, contracts and meeting minutes, as well as court documents, reveal their deep business and personal ties. The billionaire's name appears several thousand times in these so-called "Epstein files." These documents shed light on his involvement in complex tax schemes, but also bring to light several accusations of sexual assault against Black.
