For the last several years, Dershowitz has faced allegations that his best buddy and ultimate “Florida Man” Jeffrey Epstein — a billionaire who used his wealth to lure underaged girls into a sex trafficking operation — loaned out his victims to have sex with Dershowitz.
Boies Schiller, in papers signed by Sigrid McCawley, with assistance from Meredith Schultz, has now sued Dershowitz for defamation on behalf of Virginia (Roberts) Guiffre. Dershowitz has publicly called Guiffre a liar and extortionist based on the Epstein victim’s claim that Dershowitz had sex with her as part of Epstein’s scheme.
This isn’t the first time Dershowitz has tangled with Boies over the Epstein matter. Boies has worked with Guiffre and another victim, Sarah Ransome, since 2014. Combined with the work the firm did with Legal Momentum contributing to the shutdown of Backpage for facilitating trafficking and exploitation, work on behalf of victims of sex trafficking and sex abuse has been one of Boies Schiller’s largest pro bono commitments.
Ransome previously sued Dershowitz for defamation for calling her a liar for claiming that Epstein directed her to have sex with Dershowitz while she was a minor. In that case, Dershowitz claimed that Boies was the “perpetrator” of a scheme to discredit him. That case settled on confidential terms. According to the present complaint, what that settlement did not include was any statement that the victims were even potentially mistaken in identifying Dershowitz despite the professor’s entreaties to include such a claim.
With Epstein back in the news following Alex Acosta’s elevation to Trump’s Labor Secretary — renewing focus on Acosta’s sweetheart deal for Epstein and the court’s February ruling that it was a “material omission” for Acosta and his office to mislead the victims about the nature of the deal — Dershowitz is back in the press denouncing the women who’ve identified him and, in a case of “be careful what you wish for,” earning himself a defamation suit.
Some ATL readers may remember when former federal district judge Paul Cassell and Bradley Edwards raised the prospect of Dershowitz’s involvement in Epstein’s criminality years ago as part of a Crime Victims’ Rights Act petition on the part of young women that Acosta never bothered to consult when he gave Epstein a Non-Pros for the myriad more serious charges he faced. In pursuing that petition, Judge Cassell and Edwards ultimately sued Dershowitz for defamation as the professor blasted them in the media. After the deposition where he blasted the claims as a billion-dollar extortion scheme, he settled on confidential terms. He claims, not unlike his television hero Donald Trump, that this settlement exonerated him. Judge Cassell and Edwards disagree:
he has been making public statements suggesting that he has prevailed in the lawsuit and that the terms of the settlement exonerate him of any wrongdoing. Those statements are at best misleading. It is a mistake for anyone to conclude based upon Mr. Dershowitz’s statements that the case against him was abandoned due to lack of factual support.
Undeterred by public statements like this, Dershowitz has maintained his innocence and repeatedly branded the women who have tied him to Epstein’s scheme as liars and extortionists and demanded a trial to once and for all prove his innocence.
https://abovethelaw.com/2019/04/dershowitz-wanted-a-trial-over-sex-trafficking-accusations-hes-getting-one/