A federal judge has agreed to dismiss a lawsuit brought against Leon Black after the plaintiff in the case, who had accused the private equity billionaire of rape, said she was “medically incapable of continuing” and at risk of “acute psychiatric crisis”, including suicide.
The woman known only as “Jane Doe”, who claimed in a lawsuit that was first filed in July ۲۰۲۳ that she had been “handed off” to Black by his associate Jeffrey Epstein and then sexually assaulted by him, had been acting without a lawyer in the case. Doe has alleged that the assault occurred in ۲۰۰۲, when she was a teenager.
“My request [to dismiss the case with prejudice] is not a concession concerning the truth of my allegations, a retraction of my statements, or an acceptance of defendant’s disputed positions; it reflects only the medical reality that I can no longer safely pursue this litigation,” Doe wrote in a legal filing submitted to the court on ۱۲ October.
An attorney for Black, who has strongly denied Doe’s allegations, said his team was pleased that the judge had dismissed the lawsuit.
Susan Estrich, Black’s lawyer, said in a statement that the lawsuit should never have been brought in the first place and repeated earlier claims that Doe’s complaint was a “work of fiction” filled with lies and fabrications. In a legal filing, Black’s lawyer Michael Carlinsky said Doe’s request to dismiss the case – which Black did not oppose – “has been made voluntarily by Ms Doe without any settlement, compromise, or inducement by Mr Black”.
The Wall Street billionaire, who was Epstein’s friend and former client, has separately come under fire in Washington, where the US House of Representatives voted unanimously in September to hold him in criminal contempt for defying two congressional subpoenas ordered by the House oversight committee, which is investigating Epstein, his relationships to powerful people and the government’s handling of Epstein investigations.
One of the congressional subpoenas that Black was accused of violating would have forced him to hand over all nondisclosure agreements to which he was a party. Black attended a voluntary closed-door interview with the oversight committee in June but walked out shortly after it started and was accused by members of stonewalling. He then declined to appear for a subsequent congressional deposition. Black’s lawyers have said he was being targeted by a “political witch-hunt” and filed a lawsuit against the oversight committee to block the subpoenas, claiming the committee was exceeding its authority.
The contempt resolution has been referred to the US Department of Justice, though it is not clear if the department will pursue criminal prosecution.
Black has emerged as a key target of congressional investigators because of his relationship with Epstein, who provided financial services to Black between ۲۰۱۲ and ۲۰۱۷. After Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state prostitution charges in ۲۰۰۸, including procuring a minor, Black became Epstein’s largest client, paying him a total of roughly $۱۷۰m in fees, according to an investigation by the Senate finance committee’s ranking member, Ron Wyden.
In his statement before the oversight committee in June, Black wrote: “I did not know about this nefarious activity until Epstein was charged with trafficking in July ۲۰۱۹.” But Black acknowledged that he did know about Epstein pleading guilty in “۲۰۰۸ to state charges relating to prostitution involving a minor”.
Epstein died in prison in ۲۰۱۹ after he was charged with sex trafficking.
The dismissal of the Doe v Black lawsuit comes at what could have been a critical moment in the case, which was being heard in the southern district of New York.
Both sides had been ordered to review thousands of pages of documents that were due to be unsealed, which were related both to that case as well as a separate class-action lawsuit brought by Epstein victims against JP Morgan, in which Doe received a financial settlement. The review process required both sides to examine documents and propose redactions before they were to be made public. In a recent filing, Doe said she needed legal assistance to complete the task. In response to that request, Judge Jessica Clarke suggested Doe contact the City Bar Justice Center, which is described as a pro bono legal service to low-income clients.
In a later eight-page letter requesting the dismissal of her case against Black, Doe, who said she is autistic and has post-traumatic stress disorder, said that on reflection she believed neither additional time nor limited legal assistance could “address the medical danger associated with my continued substantive participation”.
“My treating physician has expressed serious concern about the effects of the litigation over an extended period and has repeatedly advised that I disengage,” she wrote.
Doe said her autism and PTSD materially affected her ability to “process complex, ambiguous, rapidly changing, and socially mediated information under adversarial pressure”. She added that – because she was representing herself in the case – she had been exposed through the redaction process to thousands of pages containing “graphic accounts of sexual trauma, [and] intimate medical and familial information”.
Doe had initially been represented by lawyers at the Wigdor law firm, which is known for representing sexual assault victims. Her former attorneys withdrew from the case in April ۲۰۲۵.
Black’s legal team said they intended to continue to pursue litigation against Wigdor over legal fees, which is a position Wigdor is expected to challenge.
Doe faced significant setbacks over the course of her lawsuit against Black, but also some victories. Clarke, the judge who was presiding over the lawsuit, sanctioned Doe and her former lawyer at Wigdor in April for “serious, sanctionable misconduct in this case” and said the lawyer had “repeatedly lied to the court and opposing counsel”. But the judge also ruled at the time that the high-stakes lawsuit could proceed.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, which means Doe cannot bring the matter to court again. The Guardian sought a comment from Doe but she did not reply to an email request.
