© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Leon Dim is pictured here in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. Might per chance well 1, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Leon Dim, the billionaire who unless recently led deepest equity company Apollo World Management (NYSE:) Inc, on Monday strongly rejected claims by a Russian model who accused him of defamation and subjecting her to sexual violence, calling her accusations “a work of fiction.”
Dim also filed his obtain defamation lawsuit accusing the girl, Guzel Ganieva, of operating a “blatant” plot to extort him of a minimal of $100 million in swap for conserving restful.
Ganieva’s lawsuit and Dim’s countersuit in a Unique York sigh court in Unique york watch unspecified damages.
“Acceptable out of the defense playbook, Dim’s counterclaims are an obtrusive effort at intimidating Ms. Ganieva who will proceed to aggressively litigate her claims and preserve Dim accountable for his noxious habits,” Ganieva’s prison legitimate Jeanne Christensen said in an emailed statement.
Dim, 69, stepped down as Apollo’s chief executive and chairman this year after an self sustaining overview by the Dechert regulation company said he paid the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein $158 million for tax and property planning.
The overview found Dim changed into once no longer alive to with Epstein’s felony actions. Dim said on the time he deeply regretted his involvement with Epstein.
In her June 1 lawsuit, Ganieva accused Dim of lying by denying claims she made on Twitter that he “sexually stressed and abused” her “for years,” when he later advised media he had “foolishly had a consensual affair” along with her and that she extorted him.
Ganieva also said Dim subjected her to a tall assortment of cases of undesirable sexual habits, in conjunction with an alleged July 2014 rape in her home on Unique york’s Upper East Facet.
In Monday’s filings, Dim’s lawyers said Ganieva’s criticism changed into once “rife” with accusations that were “nasty, prejudicial, irrelevant, and intended handiest to feed breathless tabloid headlines and fracture Mr. Dim’s recognition.”
They asked a think to strike dozens of excerpts, in conjunction with that Dim “derived pleasure” from humiliating and debasing Ganieva, and by accusing her of extortion borrowed “the playbook of ratings of rich and extremely effective men” dealing with identical accusations.
Dim’s lawyers also rejected Ganieva’s rape claim, calling the come upon a “pre-planned romantic evening” where he confirmed up with a bottle of wine and tucked her into mattress.
“The criticism in this case is a work of fiction,” the lawyers said.
Ganieva, in her dead 30s, said Dim picked her out of a crowd at a 2008 World Females’s Day tournament, and later accompanied her to top restaurants, cultural events and events.
Dim’s lawyers said the first assembly changed into once at a deepest occasion, and that Dim’s subsequent 6-1/2-year relationship with Ganieva changed into once “casual, episodic, and completely consensual.”
The lawyers said that after Ganieva began what they shriek changed into once her extortion marketing and marketing campaign, Dim agreed in October 2015 to pay her $100,000 a month for 15 years. They said the funds stopped after Ganieva posted her tweets in March.
“Mr. Dim is responsible handiest of extraordinarily uncomfortable judgment” by having an affair with Ganieva, making himself a draw by lavishing her with gifts and money, and permitting himself to be extorted, his lawyers said.
