The former model who accused billionaire Leon Black of sexual assault and sued him for defamation is parting ways with her high-profile attorneys, court records show.
In 2021, Guzel Ganieva filed a lawsuit against the private equity mogul and onetime pal of sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, alleging that he raped and abused her during their six-year relationship and coerced her into signing an NDA.
Black, 71, denied Ganieva’s claims and accused her of extortion. “The truth is that I have been extorted by Ms. Ganieva for many years and I made substantial monetary payments to her, based on her threats to go public concerning our relationship, in an attempt to spare my family from public embarrassment,” Black said in a prior statement.
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Jeanne Christensen, an attorney for Ganieva and partner at Wigdor LLP, filed a court affirmation on Wednesday saying her firm was withdrawing from the case.
“To date, discovery is incomplete, and no depositions have taken place,” Christensen stated. “As such, a trial date is likely more than one year away. Ms. Ganieva will have ample time to continue in discovery and proceed with this litigation if Wigdor LLP is permitted to withdraw as counsel now.”
Christensen added that on Tuesday, Ganieva “informed Wigdor LLP of her decision to terminate our representation and that she intends to proceed pro se.” Ganieva, she noted, graduated from law school but isn’t admitted to practice in any state.
The lawyer said Wigdor had “other professional reasons for withdrawing from representation as there has been an irrevocable breakdown of the attorney-client relationship. Such circumstances also are sufficient to warrant withdrawal.”
“We cannot elucidate those reasons without violating confidentiality,” Christensen said, adding that they could further discuss the matter in a private hearing with the judge.
The filing states that Wigdor LLP has a lien on Ganieva’s case, so the firm would recover a portion of any awards or settlement she receives as a result of the litigation.
Christensen declined to comment.
Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, said, “As we have said all along, Ms. Ganieva’s allegations against Mr. Black are demonstrably false and this lawsuit never should have been brought. We have no comment on Wigdor’s decision to withdraw.”
Still, one source with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast that Wigdor LLP’s lien will make it difficult for Ganieva to find other attorneys willing to take on her case. “That should tell you a lot about this and suggest it is not an amicable end,” the person said. “She is now representing herself.”
Christensen and Wigdor LLP also represent Cheri Pierson, who claims in a lawsuit that Black raped her at Epstein's New York mansion. Pierson’s accusations were previously mentioned in Ganieva’s filings but under a pseudonym. Her complaint, which is pending, also names Epstein’s estate as a defendant.
The saga involving Ganieva and Black—who stepped down from his private equity firm Apollo Global Management after it probed his $158 million in payments to Epstein—has included two other court battles.
In October 2021, Black filed a federal lawsuit accusing Ganieva and Wigdor of defamation and racketeering and claimed they worked to “line their own pockets” by falsely tying him to Epstein. He also accused his Apollo co-founder Josh Harris of conspiring with Ganieva to plant negative stories about him in the press, an allegation Harris denied and which his spokesperson called “desperate and absurd.”
Last June, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer dismissed Black’s suit as “glaringly deficient,” and an appeals court upheld the decision this month.
Meanwhile, in October 2022, Black filed another complaint against Ganieva and her firm in Manhattan Supreme Court that accused the ex-model of a breach of contract over the $9.2 million he paid her via their hush agreement. It also accused Wigdor of tortious interference with Ganieva’s NDA, saying the firm “induced and encouraged” their client to “repeatedly breach” her contract with Black. The case is ongoing.
Black argued that Ganieva’s amended complaint in the defamation case contained even more “fabrications” against him, including claims that he kidnapped her in 2008 and flew her to Palm Beach, Florida, to meet Jeffrey Epstein. The complaint alleges that Ganieva then met Epstein’s employee and alleged co-conspirator Sarah Kellen, who told her Epstein and Black were “sex addicts” and warned, “You have to let them do whatever they want with you, and you have to let them be with multiple sexual partners if that’s what they want.”
Black’s latest suit said Ganieva’s claims about Kellen “identified no documentation, recordings, or other memorialization of the alleged conversation between Ganieva and Kellen some 13 years ago. And, just like the block quotes wrongly attributed to Black, on information and belief, the alleged quotations from Kellen are fabrications.”
In a motion to dismiss, attorneys for Wigdor LLP said that Black had already failed in his attempt to bring a frivolous “RICO” action against them in federal court and was filing his latest suit “to satisfy his insatiable urge for revenge against his own victim, Ganieva, and her counsel, Wigdor.”
— with reporting by Justin Rohrlich
