One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims filed a defamation lawsuit against attorney Alan Dershowitz on Tuesday, claiming that Dershowitz was involved in sex trafficking.
By: Harry Cherry
The plaintiff, Virginia Giuffre, said in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in a federal court in Manhattan that she was trafficked and abused by pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s and that Alan Dershowitz falsely claimed that she lied about what happened.
Giuffre said that Dershowitz was one of Epstein’s co-conspirators and participated in sex trafficking, alleging that he was “one of the men to whom Epstein lent out” for sex.
“One of the persons with whom Epstein acted in concert was Dershowitz,” the civil complaint says. “When Epstein was arrested for sex trafficking in 2006, Dershowitz defended his friend and client by falsely attacking the veracity of his accusers, including calling the children whom Epstein had abused (and, in the case of Plaintiff, the Defendant himself had also abused), liars and prostitutes.”
Dershowitz told NBC News in an interview on Tuesday that he intends his innocence in a court of law.
“I welcome this lawsuit. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to prove in court that this woman made up the whole story,” Dershowitz told NBC News on Tuesday. “I will prove that she committed perjury. I never met her.”
In connection with Giuffre lawsuit, Maria Farmer, a separate woman, alleged in an affidavit sworn until penalty of perjury that she was an employee of Epstein’s tasked with purchasing art, but also controlled entry to Epstein’s Manhattan home.
Under penalty of perjury, she swore that she witnessed “school-age girls” entering Epstein’s home and that they were “escorted upstairs,” adding that Dershowitz visited Epstein “a number of times,” according to NBC News.
“I can prove that Maria Farmer never met me,” he told NBC News. “I never met Jeffrey Epstein until after she stopped working for him…She could have never have seen me.”
“We look forward to proving these allegations in a court of law,” Joshua Schiller, Giuffre’s lawyer, told NBC News in a statement.
“Ms. Guiffre’s complaint is supported by detailed factual allegations, contemporaneous documents, and sworn affidavits,” Sigrid McCawley, an attorney who also represents Giuffre, told NBC News. “Mr. Dershowitz’s response in court will have to be more than the conclusory denials and ad hominem attacks on victims and their lawyers that continue to be the core of his desperate media strategy.”
Jeffrey Epstein entered a guilty plea at the state level to charges of soliciting prostitution and spent 13 months in jail — but was given special privileges, such as the ability to leave jail for work-related reasons. He was never pursued by federal prosecutors, as part of an agreement between prosecutors and his defense team.
In a letter sent in February to Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., the Department of Justice’s office of professional responsibility wrote that it had “opened an investigation into allegations that Department attorneys may have committed professional misconduct in the manner in which the Epstein criminal matter was resolved.”
In response to the Department of Justice, Sasse wrote in a letter that “the victims of Epstein’s child sex trafficking” deserve the investigation.
“Jeffrey Epstein is a child rapist and there’s not a single mom or dad in America who shouldn’t be horrified by the fact that he received a pathetically soft sentence,” he added.
Alex Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney in Miami, who is now President Trump’s Labor secretary, was found by OPR investigators to have committed “professional misconduct” with his handling of the Epstein case.
