Federal judge dismisses rape lawsuit against Leon Black after plaintiff cites medical inability to continue
A woman who accused private equity billionaire Leon Black of sexual assault withdrawn her case, citing psychiatric crisis risk and the medical burden of self-representation.
What happened
A federal judge in the Southern District of New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed in July 2023 by a woman known as "Jane Doe" who accused Leon Black of raping her in 2002 when she was a teenager, claiming he had been introduced to her by Jeffrey Epstein. On October 12, Doe requested dismissal, stating in an eight-page letter that she is autistic and has post-traumatic stress disorder, and that continued litigation posed a risk of "acute psychiatric crisis" including suicide. She wrote that her treating physician had advised disengagement from the case and that self-representation while exposed to thousands of pages of graphic sexual trauma documentation through a redaction review process materially impaired her ability to function under adversarial pressure. Black, who has "strongly denied" the allegations, did not oppose the dismissal. His attorney Michael Carlinsky stated the dismissal was made "voluntarily by Ms Doe without any settlement, compromise, or inducement by Mr Black."
Context
The dismissal comes as both sides were preparing to review thousands of pages of documents set to be unsealed, and at a time when Doe's legal situation had deteriorated significantly. Doe had initially been represented by lawyers at the Wigdor law firm but they withdrew in April 2025; the judge had previously sanctioned Doe and her former Wigdor attorney in April for "serious, sanctionable misconduct." The dismissal occurs amid separate congressional pressure on Black: the House of Representatives voted unanimously in September to hold him in criminal contempt for defying subpoenas from the House oversight committee investigating Epstein and his relationships to powerful figures. Black became Epstein's largest client after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges involving a minor, paying him roughly $170 million in fees between 2012 and 2017 according to Senate investigators, though Black has stated he did not know of Epstein's sex trafficking activities until July 2019 when Epstein was charged federally.
What's disputed
Black's lawyers characterize the congressional investigation as a "political witch-hunt" and claim the oversight committee exceeded its authority; Black's legal team asserts the lawsuit dismissal was entirely voluntary without any settlement or inducement. Black's defense attorney called Doe's original complaint a "work of fiction" filled with lies and fabrications. Black's statement that he was unaware of Epstein's criminal conduct until 2019 conflicts with his acknowledged knowledge of Epstein's 2008 guilty plea to state prostitution charges involving a minor.