Dartmouth has “no current financial relationship” with Leon Black ’73, College spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth. The Black Family Foundation, which is directed by Black, donated $48 million in 2012 to name the Black Family Visual Arts Center, according to Dartmouth News.
Barnello did not respond to multiple further requests for comment about when the decision was made or whether the College had any plans to rename the BVAC.
Employees in Dartmouth’s Advancement Division, which works to bring in donors and reach fundraising goals for the College, directed requests for comment to Barnello.
A New York Times investigation published on Oct. 18 identified dozens of previously-unreported emails exchanged between Black and Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18 in June of 2008. He was also accused of one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors in August of 2019, but was found dead in a federal detention facility in Manhattan after pleading not guilty.
The New York Times’s investigation also detailed emails and court records showing Epstein’s role in helping Black navigate a payout worth millions of dollars after Black was accused in November 2022 of sexual assault by a former girlfriend Cheri Pierson in Epstein’s home in 2002.
The emails, none of which were written by Black, also revealed an aggressive campaign waged by Epstein against Black for what Black has said were tax- and estate-planning services. In addition, it documented Black’s payments totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars to at least three women who were associated with Epstein in court documents and notes taken by congressional investigators that were shared with The New York Times. Black’s representatives did not share any answers to questions on the context of these payments with reporters from The Times.
Black served on Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees from 2002 until 2011 and has donated to the College both personally and through his family foundation. In addition to his $48 million donation for BVAC, his gifts have supported endowed professorships in the English — the Leon Black Professor of Shakespearean Studies — and Jewish Studies — the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor. In March of 2021, he was pushed out of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990, because of his ties to Epstein, according to the New York Times.
Black signed a settlement on Jan. 20, 2023 acknowledging that Epstein “used the money Black paid him to partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands,” but has denied that he directly played a role in Epstein’s criminal enterprise. The $62 million deal with the then-acting attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands Carol Thomas-Jacobs also provided Black immunity from criminal prosecution for his financial support of Epstein.
Black has also been accused of raping an autistic 16-year-old and sexually harrassing and abusing Guzel Ganieva over the course of seven years. Ganieva has also alleged that Black flew her to Florida against her will to meet Epstein in 2008.
At the time of Pierson’s lawsuit in November 2022, College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote that the College had no plans to rename BVAC.
