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Dershowitz Must Face Epstein Accuser’s Defamation Lawsuit

Dershowitz was part of a team of lawyers that negotiated a 2008 plea deal for Epstein over criminal charges in Florida.

Dershowitz Must Face Epstein Accuser’s Defamation Lawsuit
Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein, center, speaks with members of the media outside of federal court in New York. (Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg)  

(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge in New York ruled that Alan Dershowitz will have to face a defamation suit filed against him by a woman who claims she was forced to have sex with the Harvard law professor while she was an underage victim of Jeffrey Epstein.

Virginia Giuffre claims she was forced to have sex with friends and acquaintances of Epstein from 2000 to 2002. Dershowitz denies the allegations and has publicly called Giuffre a liar on multiple occasions, leading her to sue him for defamation.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska on Wednesday allowed Giuffre’s case to go forward, but she disqualified David Boies and his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, from representing her. Preska ruled that Giuffre, who is also suing over Dershowitz’s claim that she conspired with her lawyers to accuse him falsely, had turned her lawyers into witnesses, so they can’t continue to represent her.

Boies Schiller spokesman Edward Evans didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

In the ruling, Preska didn’t consider whether Giuffre’s claims are truthful. The judge instead made a preliminary ruling that, if all of Giuffre’s claims were true, the law provides her with the right to sue Dershowitz.

Ethics rules bar lawyers from representing a client in a case where the lawyer is likely to be a witness on a significant issue. Because Giuffre’s complaint included allegations relating to Dershowitz’s allegedly false claims of conspiracy between Giuffre and her Boies Schiller lawyers, the firm is “hoist on its own petard,” requiring it to be disqualified, Preska said.

“Giuffre raises the specter of one set of BSF lawyers’ examining another set of BSF lawyers, including name partner David Boies,” she wrote.

Dershowitz was part of a team of lawyers that negotiated a 2008 plea deal for Epstein over criminal charges in Florida, which required him to serve just 13 months in a Palm Beach, Florida, jail with daily work release.

Alexander Acosta, the U.S. attorney in Miami at the time, resigned as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary in July amid controversy over the deal. Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell in August while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

The case is Giuffre v. Dershowitz, 19-cv-3377, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth

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