Tension between Leon Black and his Apollo Global Management Inc. co-founder Josh Harris is boiling over, threatening to buffet the investment giant with fresh controversy.
In a filing last week in a rape and defamation case brought by a woman with whom he has admitted to having a yearslong affair, Mr. Black accused Mr. Harris of plotting his removal from Apollo in an act of revenge for being passed over to succeed Mr. Black as chief executive officer.
The private-equity titan, who stepped down as Apollo’s CEO and chairman in March 2021, further suspects Mr. Harris encouraged his ex-lover, Guzel Ganieva, to publicly accuse him of rape and harassment. Mr. Black has been assembling emails and other material to try to prove the allegations, according to people familiar with the matter and copies of some of the emails that were viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Harris “waged a highly coordinated and orchestrated campaign to destroy Mr. Black’s professional and personal reputation,” said Mr. Black’s lawyer, Susan Estrich. Mr. Harris’s advisers “whispered to investors, placed articles and ultimately supported and encouraged an effort by Ms. Ganieva to make knowingly false claims in the courts about her relationship with Mr. Black,” she said.
Mr. Harris, who stepped down from his day-to-day role at Apollo at the beginning of this year, vehemently denies the claims.
“These allegations and insinuations are desperate and absurd,” a spokesman for Mr. Harris said. “Mr. Harris...
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