Rape case against Leon Black, founder of the modern Vail Resorts, discontinued in New York
Art Seitz/Abaca Press, via AP
A lawsuit alleging rape charges against Leon Black, the private equity investor who founded the modern Vail Resorts, has been discontinued.
Alleged victim Cheri Pierson dropped her lawsuit on Thursday, Feb. 15, according to a Supreme Court of the State of New York stipulation filed by the New York County Clerk.
The stipulation from Judge Suzanne Adams says “the complaint as against Defendant Leon Black is hereby discontinued with prejudice and without costs to any party as against the other,” according to the filing.
Black dropped a related appeal on Friday, Reuters reported. Black, in a statement, said he’d never met Pierson.
Other allegations
It was one of two lawsuits Black was facing for alleged incidents that are purported to have transpired decades ago.
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The other lawsuit, in which Black is accused of raping an underage victim inside the Manhattan home of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, remains ongoing.
Black’s relationship with Epstein is being investigated by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as a result of Black’s financial dealings with Epstein.
The committee’s investigation began in June 2022 and was “prompted by inconsistencies in a report by the law firm Dechert LLP that Apollo’s board of directors commissioned to examine Black’s ties to Epstein,” according to the committee.
The Dechert report is mentioned in Pierson’s complaint, which noted that the report “revealed that Black paid Epstein, between 2012 and 2017, a total of $158 million, which Black claimed were payments made to compensate Epstein — who possessed neither a college degree, nor any advanced degrees related to tax advisement or estate planning — ‘for the overall value he believed Epstein was providing to him through Epstein’s advice on trust and estate planning, tax issues, philanthropic issues, and the operation of (Black’s) Family (wealth management) Office.'”
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Pierson’s complaint also referenced a third rape allegation against Black, from accuser Guzel Ganieva, saying Black, in Ganieva’s complaint, described Jeffrey Epstein as his “best friend.”
Black, in his answers to Pierson’s complaint, which were filed with the New York County Clerk on Jan. 23, denied all the accusations made in the Dechert report and Ganieva’s complaint, “except admits that he attended meetings at Epstein’s townhouse,” according to the Jan. 23 filing, and “admits that Defendant and Epstein had a business relationship.”
Ganieva’s lawsuit against Black was dismissed in May because Ganieva had already received $9.5 million from Black under a nondisclosure agreement that followed their six-year relationship, which ended in 2014.
Vail connection
Black became involved with Vail through former Vail Mountain owner George Gillett; a 1997 Time Magazine piece on Gillett described Gillett’s company — then known as Vail Associates — to be part of “a billion-dollar empire based on the odd combination of meatpacking and television stations, much of it financed by the junk bonds of Drexel Burnham Lambert, led by the now infamous Michael Milken.”
Black’s ties to Milken are described in an October 2020 piece from Forbes magazine writer Lisette Voytko titled, “Who Is Leon Black, The Billionaire Who Helped Bankroll Jeffrey Epstein’s Second Act?”
While working at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Black “rose through the ranks to become head of mergers and acquisitions,” Voytko wrote. “The bank’s fortunes floundered in 1989, when senior advisor Michael Milken was convicted of securities fraud, forcing the firm into bankruptcy. (Milken, nicknamed the ‘junk bond king,’ was pardoned by President Trump, a former Epstein friend, in February.) Black struck out on his own the following year, cofounding Apollo Advisors” in 1990.
Black also founded a spin-off company, Apollo Ski Partners, which took over Vail when Gillett couldn’t pay off what he owed to Drexel Burnham Lambert. Gillett Holdings filed for Chapter 11 in 1991, and Apollo Ski Partners, in 1992, became the majority shareholder of Gillett’s former company which, in addition to Vail Mountain, owned meat-packing operations and TV stations.
Apollo Ski Partners sold off those other assets, leaving the company with just Vail Associates. It changed the company’s name to Vail Resorts and took the company public in 1997 under Rob Katz, who had started with Apollo at its founding in 1990. Katz had been assigned to the Vail account since 1992.
Apollo later dissolved its stake in Vail Resorts in 2004, but Katz stayed with the company, becoming Vail Resorts CEO in 2006.
