Case against Leon Black dismissed after plaintiff said she was ‘medically incapable of continuing’

In a recent court ruling, a lawsuit against billionaire Leon Black has been dismissed after the plaintiff, identified as "Jane Doe", declared herself medically incapable of continuing with the litigation. Jane Doe originally alleged that billionaire Leon Black raped her after being "handed off" by his associate, Jeffrey Epstein, in 2002.

She claimed the assault occurred when she was a teenager. Jane Doe, who represented herself in the case without legal counsel, filed for dismissal on October 12, citing her medical condition as the reason she could no longer safely pursue the litigation. Her request was not an admission of guilt or a retraction of her statements, but rather a reflection of her medical reality.

Black's legal team, led by Susan Estrich, expressed satisfaction with the judge's decision, maintaining that Jane Doe's allegations were a "work of fiction" filled with lies and fabrications. Black, who was Epstein's friend and former client, has faced criticism in Washington, where he was recently voted in criminal contempt by the US House of Representatives for defying two congressional subpoenas.

The contempt resolution has been referred to the US Department of Justice. Jane Doe, who is autistic and has post-traumatic stress disorder, believed that neither additional time nor limited legal assistance could adequately address the medical danger associated with her continued participation in the litigation. Her autism and PTSD significantly affected her ability to process complex, ambiguous, rapidly changing, and socially mediated information under adversarial pressure.

She further stated that the redaction process exposed her to thousands of pages containing graphic accounts of sexual trauma, intimate medical and familial information. Jane Doe had initially been represented by lawyers at the Wigdor law firm, but they withdrew from the case in April 2025.