One afternoon this past winter, billionaire Leon Black arrived for lunch at Avra in Midtown Manhattan, settled into a large banquette, and proceeded to hold court while a steady stream of well-wishers made their way over to greet him. Among them was a partner at his old private-equity firm, the $49 billion Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990.
Although he had resigned under pressure more than two years earlier as chairman and C.E.O. of Apollo, Black still appeared to command the kind of respect that he had enjoyed back before Jeffrey Epstein, who was his close friend and self-styled tax adviser, was arrested in 2019, on charges of sex trafficking. It was then that all of Black’s troubles began.
