“I’ve seen a lot of ugly stuff, but what I haven’t seen before is an organized campaign to use charges of sexual assault as part of an effort to cancel somebody,” said Susan Estrich, who’s representing Black and has previously defended Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News.
Filing a lawsuit that accuses opposing lawyers of racketeering is highly uncommon. In the 51-page document, Black and his legal team lay out a plot orchestrated by those referred to as John Doe 1, 2 and 3.
The first two are unnamed public relations experts who the suit alleges were needed to “draft the Tweets with the right hashtags, and to make sure that the lies were then sold to the media.”
John Doe 3 is described as “covering some or all of the costs,” including payments to the public relations experts and compensation for Ganieva, replacing the money she would still be receiving had she not broken her agreement with Black to keep their relationship private.
It “took an Enterprise as skilled in social and mainstream media as it was in law; an Enterprise well-funded enough to take on a billionaire; an Enterprise that convinced Ms. Ganieva to forgo the $100,000 Mr. Black was paying her each month to publicly smear Mr. Black’s name and squeeze even more out of him,” according to Black’s filing.
Black has a net worth of $13.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The bulk of his wealth is tied up in shares of Apollo, where newly appointed Chief Executive Officer Marc Rowan is soon to be the sole co-founder involved with the storied firm. The stock has jumped almost 60% this year, and Black has never sold a share in the company.
Rowan was picked by Black and Apollo’s board earlier this year to be Black’s successor. Josh Harris, who had expressed a desire to take over as CEO, was sidelined after losing a bid to oust Black. Harris is expected to depart Apollo early next year, according to Apollo. Bloomberg reported in July that he has plans to raise a fund of his own.
—With assistance from Gillian Tan.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.