Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Leon Black Wins Epstein-Linked Sanctions Battle as Judge Finds Misconduct by Wigdor Lawyer (4/28/26)

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Leon Black Wins Epstein-Linked Sanctions Battle as Judge Finds Misconduct by Wigdor Lawyer (4/28/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

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  Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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  Epstein Chronicles. So, Leon Black has been engaged in a
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  battle with Douglas Wigdor and his firm, and the issue
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  stems from a lawsuit that was brought by Wigdoor and
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  lawyer Jean Christiansen against Leon Black. And Leon Black said
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  that the lawsuit was made up and that Douglas Wigdor
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  and the Whigdoor law firm were in on it, and
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  that the whole entire thing was nothing more than a
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  hustle and a shakedown to try and get money from
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  Leon Black. Well, Leon Black has now won that sanctioned
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  battle against Wigdor, but remember the client that they were
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  representing is no longer with the firm and her case
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  against Leon Black is still active in the court. This
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  has to do specifically with the lawyers being sanctioned. And look,
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  you have to understand, there's a lot of people that
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  are coming out of the woodwork, or have come out
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  of the woodwork trying to get paid off of this.
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  There are so many grifters out there, so many people
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  that have no sort of moral compass and they have
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  no problem making pretend that they were assaulted or making
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  pretend they were part of this as they look to
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  get a bag. And what that does, obviously, is it
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  creates a tougher road for people that were actually harmed. Now,
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  I'm not saying that this lady who is suing Leon
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  Black didn't get harmed or that nothing happened to her.
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  I don't know. But when you have lawyers like this
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  out here playing games and they get sanctioned, certainly not
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  a good look. Today's article is from Fox News, and
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  the headline Federal judge says lawyer lied repeatedly during epstein
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  Lin's suit against billionaire Leon Black. I mean, geez, Louise,
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  why do you have to lie? Plenty of evidence out there.
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  What are you lying about? And if you're gonna lie
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  against a dude like Leon Black, you have to know
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  that his lawyers are going to do everything in their
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  power to destroy your narrative. And I don't know if
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  there's anybody out there with more money than Leon Black
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  when it comes to this kind of thing. God's worth
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  what fifteen billion dollars? You think he cares about paying
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  lawyers two thousand dollars an hour? Most certainly not. This
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  article was authored by Sophia Compton, a federal judge has
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  sanctioned the law firm representing a woman in a lawsuit
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  accusing billionairely On Black of sexual assault linked to the
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  late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, but stopped short of throwing
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  the case out entirely. And I think that's important because
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  the judge obviously is seen enough here for this to
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  go forward. If this was so egregious that there was
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  no evidence whatsoever, I think Judge Clark would have thrown
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  the whole entire thing out, but she didn't do that.
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  In a seventy six page opinion and order, US District
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  Judge Jessica Clark found that attorney Jean Christensen and her
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  firm Whigdoor LLP engaged in serious, sanctionable misconduct during the
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  litigation and that should never happen, not from a high
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  powered firm like Whigdor. Completely unacceptable. And what it does
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  is it gives ammunition of people who want to call
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  this a hoax. And I think some of these lawyers
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  that are involved have questionable motives at best. I mean,
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  look at some of the lawyers that were involved with
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  Diddy when we were covering that. I mean, Tyrone Blackburn,
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  you had the other woman, I forget her name now
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  she got sanctioned, Ariel Mitchell, Ariel Mitchell, kid was it
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  something like that? Anyway, she was threatening to be sanctioned.
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  It was a shit show, and you had people coming
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  out of the woodwork making all kinds of crazy claims.
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  So it was interesting to watch how the judges reacted
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  to all of that and what they allowed to move
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  forward and what they threw out. And I think we're
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  seeing shades of that here with Leon Black as well.
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  The judge is not willing to throw the whole thing out.
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  But it's obvious that the lawyers over at wigdoor were
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  engaging in sanctionable offenses. Because a judge doesn't just sanction
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  a lawyer out of the blue, right, it has to
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  be a serious offense because it's a big deal. I mean,
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  this lawyer, Jean Christensen, she has to file the sanction
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  with every case he takes in SDNY, and I mean
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  that's you know, a death knell right. As a client,
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  are you going to go to a lawyer who's under sanctioned?
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  I know I'm not. I'm going to somebody that has
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  a great reputation and somebody that's going to have a great,
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  you know, relationship with the judge and the court. That's
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  what I'm looking for, not somebody under sanctioned. Clark wrote
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  that Christiansen lied repeatedly to the court and opposing counsel
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  about a related case and directed or client to delete
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  a potentially irrelevant social media account. Well that's not good.
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  And if you have to play games and you have to,
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  you know, have your client do things that are not acceptable,
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  chances are you don't have the evidence to back up
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  what you're saying, right, I mean, that's the only thing
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  I can take from it. And it's bizarre. If you're
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  going to go after a guy like Leon Frickin Black,
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  you better have your ducks in a row. This is
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  a serious man with a lot of serious power and
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  a lot of serious friends. So if you don't have
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  your ducks in a row and you don't have the
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  evidence to back up what you're saying, Leon Black will
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  eat you alive. We've seen it plenty of times before.
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  In light of the serious and varied misconduct, the court
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  strongly considered granting the case terminating sanctions defendant requests in
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  this matter, Clark wrote, However, the court ultimately concluded that
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  lesser sanctions can address the misconduct. And again that's because
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  Judge Clark has probably seen something here that disturbs her,
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  and there's probably enough there for her to say that
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  a jury should look at it as opposed to just
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  her dismissing it. Now, that's my speculation. Of course, I
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  don't know what Judge Clark's mental state is or you
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  know what she's thinking, but that seems like the likeliest
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  scenario in my opinion. The lawsuit alleges that Black, co
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  founder of the Apollo Global Management, raped the sixteen year
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  old girl in New York City in two thousand and two.
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  The accuser, identified as Jane Doe, claimed she was previously
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  abused and groomed by Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell, who
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  she says trafficktor to other men, including Leon Black. The
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  judge also raised concerns about the plaintiff's evidence, finding that
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  some material, including sonogram images contained in personal journals, had
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  been falsified. Clark did not rule on the underlying allegations,
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  but determined that certain supporting evidence could not be relied
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  upon not looking good, not looking good at all. Now,
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  of course, we'll have to see how it all ends
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  up right, but so far not looking good for the plaintiff.
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  And if they found falsified sonogram reports, that's not going
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  to look good to a jury, I can promise you.
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  The plaintiff has alleged that she was subjected to an
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  impregnation game involving Epstein and others, claiming she was forced
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  to carry pregnancies resulting from sexual abuse. Well, that tracks.
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  We've heard that from multiple people. So I'm certainly not
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  writing that off, and I'm not writing off her story,
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  but we have to deal with the cards we've been dealt,
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  and according to Judge Clark, there's some issues here. According
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  to plaintiff, she was forced to carry out pregnancies that
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  resulted from the men who sexually abused her, and Maxwell
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  took photographs of Plaintiff's body as it changed during her pregnancies,
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  Clark wrote. Plaintiff testified that all of the sonograms in
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  the journals were hers from several abuse related pregnancies, including
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  some pregnancies that came to term and others that were terminated. Look,
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  you have to know that the court is going to
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  be onto the game, and if you have false documentation,
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  that's never going to cut it. That's the kind of
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  thing that the court is going to sniff out right away.
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  And I'm beyond shock to hear that Whigdor wouldn't get
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  age in this. I mean, we're talking about a pretty
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  reputable firm, you know, one of these white collar gunshoe
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  firms that has a lot of big clients. So for
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  me anyway, it's pretty concerning to hear that they're going
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  about their business like this. The judge ordered Christiansen to
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  file the misconduct ruling in all of her federal cases
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  in the Second Circuit for the next year and for
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  five years in any case in which sanctions are sought
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  against her, her firm, or her client. Not looking good
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  for Miss Christiansen. Imagine having to file that every single
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  time that you take a case. Yikes, every time your
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  boss asks you to do something, you have to show
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  up with your reprimand and be like, hey, you know what,
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  I don't know if I should be working this case.
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  I'm under sanction still. Well, here's an idea. Don't try
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  and game the system. Don't try and be a scumbag,
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  and just do the right thing. Charge hard for your clients,
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  but don't cross the line. And I know people are
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  not big fans of somebody like Alan Jackson, but boy
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  does he know what he's doing. And if I was
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  ever in trouble and I have the money, certainly one
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  of the first people I'd call. There's an art to this.
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  You can't be hamhanded in the court. You have to
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  use some finesse, right, you have to make sure that
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  you're towing the line without crossing it. And according to
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  Judge Clark, Wigdor crossed it and it's going to have
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  ramifications for the whole firm. Make no mistake about that. Now.
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  Doesn't mean it's the end of Wigdor. Probably not. It's
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  a gigantic firm, and I'm sure other lawyers have been
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  sanctioned there before. But it's not a good look and
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  it gives the detractors something to latch onto. Well, what
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  about Leon Black? What about the case I got sanctioned?
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  And that's the only kind of inroad people really need.
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  They'll latch onto that and they'll say, look, this is
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  all bs. It's a hoax, just like Donald Trump said.
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  Wigdor LLP, which no longer represents the plaintiff, said it
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  was upset by the sanctions, but noted the case remains active.
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  Political reported. We're pleased that our former client will get
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  our day in court, firm founder Douglas Wigdor said in
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  a statement. Black's attorney said the plaintiff's credibility has been
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  destroyed and called for the case to be withdrawn, urging
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  authorities to investigate what she described as fraud. Yo. If
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  I was Leon Black, I'd be asking the same thing.
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  Am I being defrauded? Has the court been defrauded? Look,
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  we have to call balls and strikes when we see them,
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  and if a court is sanctioning somebody, there's an issue there. Black,
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  who left Apollo Global Management in twenty twenty one, has
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  denied wrongdoing. He's also among several high profile figures expected
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  to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month about
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  connections to Epstein and Maxwell. Epstein died in jail in
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  twenty nineteen while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
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  Maxwell is serving a twenty year prison sentence after being
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  convicted in twenty twenty one on sex trafficking charges. Wigdor,
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  LLP and Susan Estrich could not be immediately reached by
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  Fox News Digital for comment. So there's a lot to
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  take in here. First things first, the sanctions are now official.
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  That's first thing first, And according to the judge, there
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  has been some BS going on when it comes to
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  plaintiff's legal team and the things are trying to pitch
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  to the court. Now, with that said, according to Judge Clark,
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  it didn't reach a level that the whole case should
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  be thrown out. But even with that lifeline, I think
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  it's going to be very difficult for this plaintiff to
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  get the ball across the goal line. Now, once your
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  lawyers have been sanctioned, and once the judge has basically
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  called parts of your story BS, it's very hard to
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  recover from that. So we'll keep an eye on it
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  and like usual, we'll see where it all ends up.
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  All the information that goes with this episode can be
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  found in the description box.