Billionaire Who Bought ‘Epstein Island’ Hires New Legal Chief

Black Diamond Capital Management LLC, a private investment firm founded by billionaire Stephen Deckoff, has recruited Matthew Kane as its new general counsel and chief compliance officer.

Major, Lindsey & Africa, a legal recruitment firm, announced Dec. 13 it brokered Kane’s move to Black Diamond. Kane most recently was general counsel for Alfred Club Inc., a New York-based real estate and property technology startup he joined in 2021 after nearly seven years as legal and compliance chief for private equity firm Z Capital Group LLC. Prior to Alfred, Kane was an associate at the law firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Storch Amini.

Kane came aboard after Deckoff’s SD Investments LLC announced earlier this year it would pay $60 million to acquire two Caribbean islands from a trust created by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Black Diamond currently has roughly $9 billion in assets under management and specializes in distressed debt, high yield credit, and business turnaround and restructuring work, according to its website. The firm and Kane didn’t respond to requests for comment about his hire.

Deckoff started Black Diamond in 1995 after working in investment banking. The firm is controlled by SD Investments, which announced in May its purchase of Great St. James and Little St. James islands in the US Virgin Islands.

Both islands were listed for $125 million in 2022. Deckoff, a resident of the US Virgin Islands, plans to build a luxury 25-room resort on his new properties by 2025.

Kane moves into a top legal and compliance job at Stamford, Conn.-based Black Diamond that had previously been held by Adam Tarkan, who earlier this year became special counsel at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York. Tarkan and Samuel Goldfarb, another former legal and compliance chief at Black Diamond, didn’t respond to comment requests.

Reuters reported this month on Black Diamond’s role in a dispute between video game publisher Valve Corp. and Zaiger, a Stamford-based firm that’s special litigation counsel to Black Diamond. The lawsuit, which doesn’t name Deckoff’s firm as a defendant, accuses Zaiger of extorting Valve by using financing provided by Black Diamond to sign up clients with claims against Valve’s Steam gaming platform in hopes of scoring a settlement in lieu of arbitration.

Zaiger, Deckoff, and Black Diamond were sued this year in another lawsuit filed by a lawyer who briefly worked at Zaiger on a related matter. Day Pitney is representing Black Diamond in that case.