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Black also said that he was misled by Epstein’s Jekyll-and-Hyde personality in a prepared opening statement, which was shared with CNBC.
Black is set to be interviewed later Friday morning by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating Epstein’s ties to many wealthy and influential individuals.
“I come here today voluntarily to set the record straight about my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and, in particular, why I paid him the money I did,” Black says in his prepared statement.
“Let me state unequivocally that I have never abused a woman,” Black says.
“I have never been with an underage woman. I have never engaged in sex trafficking. I have never paid Epstein for access to women,” he says. “I was never blackmailed by Epstein. I was not involved with, and had no knowledge of, any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.”
“I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde,” Black says.
In his statement, he leans on the 2021 findings in the so-called Dechert report , named after the law firm that was retained to examine how much he had paid Epstein for financial advice, the work that Epstein did, and whether he knew about Epstein’s conduct before his 2019 arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges.
“The Dechert report concluded that I had paid Epstein $158 million,” Black says, according to the prepared remarks.
Black said that Epstein had told him that the fees he was paying him “were tax-deductible, ’60-cent dollars’, which I only learned years later was not true.’
‘I.e. what I believed to be $95 million of net fees paid to him over five years was actually $158 million,” Black says. “But, at the time I was led to believe by Epstein that I was paying ’60 cent dollars.’ That assurance was false.”
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