A federal judge imposed sanctions Thursday on a prominent sexual harassment law firm, one of the firm’s lawyers and an unnamed woman who said in a lawsuit that she had been sexually abused by the billionaire investor Leon Black when she was a teenager.
In a scathing 76-page ruling, Judge Jessica G. L. Clarke of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said a lawyer on the case, Jeanne Christensen, had “lied repeatedly to the court” and Mr. Black’s lawyers.
The judge also said the unnamed plaintiff had “falsified images” in a personal journal she compiled in order to support claims against Mr. Black and his onetime friend Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. The journal was reviewed by the judge and expected to be used as evidence.
Ms. Christensen is a lawyer with Wigdor, a prominent sexual harassment law firm. Last year, the Wigdor firm withdrew from representing the woman. The woman, who has said she is autistic and neurodivergent, is now representing herself.
The ruling is a major victory for Mr. Black and his lawyers, who have long denied the claims made by the woman and complained about the behavior of Wigdor.
In a statement, one of Mr. Black’s lawyers, Susan Estrich, said that “the ruling is a thorough repudiation” of the claims by the woman and her lawyer at Wigdor. “The court found that they destroyed evidence, falsified evidence and committed ‘serious and varied misconduct’ in their zeal to try to destroy Mr. Black.”
The millions of pages of Epstein-related documents released this year by the Justice Department revealed that several women had complained to the authorities about inappropriate sexual contact by Mr. Black.
The allegations made by the unnamed woman in the lawsuit were some of the most serious and graphic brought against him. The woman had claimed in her lawsuit, which was filed in 2023, that she was sexually abused by Mr. Epstein and subsequently trafficked to Mr. Black in 2002.
Mr. Black was not charged by the authorities with any wrongdoing. A spokesman for Mr. Black said he had never sexually abused or assaulted anyone.
The judge, in imposing sanctions, did not dismiss the woman’s lawsuit outright because the statements she cited by Wigdor and the woman mainly dealt with her allegations against Mr. Epstein and not Mr. Black.
“The crux of this action is whether defendant Leon Black raped and assaulted plaintiff,” the judge wrote. “None of the lies and fabrications substantively bear on this central issue.”
Judge Clarke said Ms. Christensen had lied in a letter she wrote summarizing what had occurred in another legal proceeding in which she represented the woman. The woman’s claims of being one of Mr. Epstein’s victims were being questioned in that proceeding, which was related to JPMorgan Chase’s $290 million settlement with Mr. Epstein’s victims.
In that proceeding, Judge Clarke noted, there were a number of inconsistencies and potentially “far-fetched” claims the woman had made. In particular, Judge Clarke referred to the claims that Mr. Epstein had fathered several children with her and that she had flown on his private plane a number of times. There is no evidence that Mr. Epstein had any children.
In a statement, Douglas Wigdor, the law firm’s founding partner, said: “While we are upset about the sanction, we are pleased that our former client will get her day in court.”
As part of her sanctions, the judge ordered Wigdor to pay some of Mr. Black’s legal fees and barred the woman from using her journal as evidence in the lawsuit. Also, for the next year, Ms. Christensen was ordered by the judge to file a copy of the ruling with any other federal court she appears before in New York.
Mr. Black, a co-founder of the giant private equity firm Apollo Global Management, paid $170 million to Mr. Epstein for what he has described as tax and estate planning services. He stepped down from leadership roles at the firm in 2021 after controversy erupted over his relationship with Mr. Epstein.
