AFT, AAUP Demand SEC Probe over Apollo Execs’ Epstein Contacts

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten and American Association of University Professors President Todd Wolfson have written to the Securities and Exchange Commission to demand an investigation into apparent inaccuracies contained in official regulatory filings submitted by Apollo Global Management detailing its partners’ relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Epstein files revealed new details of multiple meetings over several years between convicted pedophile Epstein, Apollo CEO Marc Rowan and his Apollo co-founder and former CEO Leon Black—including discussions over private tax matters for the founders’ family offices. The files also appear to suggest that Black’s secretary asked a third Apollo co-founder, Joshua Harris, to funnel a $2.4 million payment to Epstein in June 2014.

However, an official SEC 8-K document filed by Apollo in 2021 and a related legal review took pains to minimize Epstein’s ties with the firm, conceding only that Black’s 2019 claims that he never promoted Epstein’s services to other executives “could have been more precise.”

In their letter, Weingarten and Wolfson write that the freshly released files show those statements to be “at the very least, misleading, and that Black and the other Apollo partners would likely have known they were misleading. As the Epstein files make clear, Apollo partners Rowan and Harris appear to have consulted with Epstein on numerous personal and professional matters.”

The two leaders add that they “are troubled by Apollo’s seeming inability to be forthcoming about the extent to which Epstein was a personal, social and professional associate of the firm and its partners. We don’t know exactly what motivates that lack of candor, but it should be investigated.”

When allegations regarding Epstein’s ties to Apollo were first raised, multiple investors aired concerns about the material financial risk they faced by continuing to invest in the publicly listed private equity behemoth. The 1.8 million-member AFT and its affiliate AAUP believe that the risk has now increased after additional contacts with the deceased child sex offender were unveiled in the latest tranche of documents.

The unions have significant exposure to Apollo through their pension funds, with AFT members having a combined capital commitment to the firm of at least $27.5 billion. Around 700 AFT members work at Apollo subsidiary Lifepoint Health’s healthcare facilities. AFT pension funds are likely exposed to Apollo-related pensions through their public equity allocations, even if they have not invested in Apollo private equity or private debt funds. That does not include university endowments, which are also significant.

Additionally, about 420,000 AFT and AAUP members are potentially affected by Rowan’s recent “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which conditions federal research funding on institutions signing a loyalty oath to the Trump administration.

The following contacts, contained in the letter, are just a small portion of the hundreds of documents in the Epstein files that refer to Marc Rowan, Leon Black and Apollo. Epstein was first convicted of sex crimes in June 2008.

• Rowan and Epstein apparently met for the first time on Sept. 3, 2013, at Apollo’s offices.
• Rowan and Epstein met on the morning of Sept. 8, 2013.
• Rowan and Black had breakfast with Epstein on Oct. 22, 2013.
• Black instructed Rowan to call Epstein regarding “donor advised funds” in January 2014.
• Rowan met Epstein for breakfast on Jan. 6, 2016.
• Rowan met with Epstein at his New York City mansion on Jan. 14, 2016. It is likely at this meeting they discussed what Epstein described as involving “Athene, Montauk Rothschild. Planes boats etc.”
• Epstein inquired about the costs and specifications of a plane that Rowan was selling in January 2016.
• In February 2016, Rowan and Epstein discussed working with Edmond de Rothschild to finance an Apollo inversion. Epstein appears to have been the conduit for the introduction to the bank.
• Rowan appears to have sought Epstein’s advice on Apollo calculations for a tax receivable agreement on March 4, 2016.
• Epstein introduced Nicholas Ribis, an executive with Trump’s resort empire, to Rowan in March 2016. Ribis appears to have tried to get himself appointed as examiner in the bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment Inc.
• In September 2016, Apollo’s Brad Wechsler asked Apollo staff to keep Epstein cc’d on materials related to tax matters for family offices of the three Apollo founders, including Rowan, for his “substantive expertise.”

The full letter can be read here.