Jeffrey Epstein's estate says it's not responsible for Leon Black allegedly raping a woman at Epstein's apartment

• Lawyers representing Jeffrey Epstein's estate want out of a sex assault lawsuit against Leon Black.
• Cheri Pierson claims Epstein set up a massage for Black, where Black raped her in 2002.

The executors of Jeffrey Epstein's estate are trying to get themselves removed from a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims she was raped by hedge fund manager Leon Black at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2002.

Cheri Pierson said she first met Epstein around the year 2000, when he started paying her $300 a session to give him massages while wearing a bikini. She says Epstein masturbated during these sessions and asked her to perform oral sex, and that she declined every time.

About two years later, Pierson was in a desperate situation and reached out to Epstein for work. It was then that he set up an appointment for her to massage Black, the co-founder and former CEO of Apollo Global Management, the lawsuit states.

During the massage at Epstein's New York City townhouse, Pierson says Black told her he wanted to "orally copulate" her and proceeded to take her by "surprise and force ... into a position where she was rendered physically helpless."

"Unquestionably, he knew she did not consent," the lawsuit claims.

In court documents filed on Thursday, lawyers for Epstein's estate asked to be removed from the lawsuit, saying that Pierson hasn't been able to show Epstein knew that Black would rape her.

They cited a New York law that only holds homeowners liable for the bad behavior of their guests if they know or should have known the guests were going to commit wrongdoing and could have stopped it.

"Plaintiff does not even clearly allege that Epstein was at the townhouse when the alleged rape occurred," lawyers for Epstein's estate wrote.

Pierson claims that Epstein knew Black had "sexual deviant needs," but the Epstein lawyers said that's too "vague" an assertion, and "does not establish that Epstein knew or should have known that Black was a rapist who would rape" her.

Black stepped down as CEO and chairman of Apollo Global Management in 2021, after the scope of his financial ties to Epstein was revealed. That year, another woman, Guzel Ganieva, accused Black of raping her and of flying her to Epstein's Palm Beach house to engage in sex acts.

Black's attorneys also filed court documents Wednesday trying to get one of Pierson's claims against him dismissed, but say that they plan to disprove the whole of her story in time.

"To be clear, the alleged sexual assault never happened," Black's lawyers said.

Lawyers for Pierson did not immediately return Insider's request for comment on the co-defendants' filings on Thursday.

Epstein died of an apparent suicide in jail in August 2019, shortly after being charged with sex trafficking minors.

A trust was set up to compensate his hundreds of alleged victims and has paid out $125 million so far.