Alan Dershowitz war for the truth

A couple of weeks ago, former Director-General of the Health Ministry Professor Yoram Lass began his weekly radio show with a resounding apology to American legal scholar Alan Dershowitz. In a conversation with a listener on Sept. 10, Lass had said that Dershowitz "raped girls along with Jeffrey Epstein. He actually raped girls. He's a rapist, and admitted it himself."

Dershowitz did not hesitate. Within days, he filed a slander lawsuit against Lass and Radio FM103 in the Tel Aviv District Court, seeking 4 million shekels (nearly $1.18 million) in damages. The apology followed the lawsuit.

"These remarks were based on a mistake of mine. I would like to apologize to Professor Dershowitz. I'm very sorry if he was offended," Lass said.

But for Dershowitz, 82, the apology wasn't enough. Not when the matter touched on what he calls the fight of his life, to discredit claims by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that she was one of the victims of billionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and that Epstein trafficked her and ordered her to have sex with his associates, including Dershowitz.

"He made outrageous, lying statements about me. He defamed me, and he kind of apologized, but not enough," Dershowitz tells Israel Hayom via Zoom from his vacation home on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, in an interview after Yom Kippur.

"He said I admitted having sex with, raping people. Admitted it! I've spent my life disproving it. He's an ignorant fool, and he's now apologized, kind of, but that's not going to change our view. We're still going forward with the lawsuit. We have to send a message to journalists all over the country, all over the world – they cannot get away with making false, defamatory statements without fact-checking, without calling the person. There has to be accountability.

"I strongly believe in the right of the media, the right of the press, even the right of the press to be wrong, if their mistakes are honest mistakes. But to say what he said about me, without any basis, and then to think that a half-way apology will get him off the hook is not good enough.

"He should not be on the air. He has shown irresponsibility. If the station is to be a responsible station, he should be fired, and then he should have to pay damages. After my legal fees and expenses, I'll contribute the damages to charities. The charities I've identified at the moment are United Hazolah, Aleph – an organization that helps defend Jews in prison all over the world, and anti-BDS.

"I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this to help my voice defend Israel. I'm doing this on behalf of everybody who's been falsely accused," he asserted. 

"I'm going to spend the rest of my life in court, defending my reputation and my good name, and mostly defending 'emet,' defending truth. I will fight back until the day I die, and then my wife will take over, and when she dies, my children will take over, and when they die, my grandchildren will take over. We will fight this until the end, until it is clear and admitted by the lawyers and the woman that she made up the whole story.

"In 55 years, I've never seen a case like this. In every other case I've had," he continued. "It's a gray area. Most of these cases are people who have known the other person, maybe they've had sex with them and the question is was it voluntary or involuntary – she worked for him, did he touch her, was it harassment, was a joke over the line? There's a gray area. In my case, I never met or saw the woman. Period. Nothing.

"The vast majority of women who make claims of rape or sexual assault are telling the truth, of course. Why would they lie? But there have been cases, mine is the most extreme, where the women do it purely for money."

However, Dershowitz says, his case is rare in that the accusation against him is entirely false, and he has never met Giuffre. Even though he has proof that dismantles her claims, her false accusations are enough for him to be perceived as guilty, he says, noting that there is no longer a presumption of innocence: "If it happened to me, it could happen to any man or women."

"It's too easy to falsely accuse. Especially with social media, the accusation becomes the conviction. That's why I called my book Guilt by Accusation. If you're accused, you're guilty. There's no responding. That's why we need the courts to respond. We need defamation laws.

'Baseless accusations'

The complicated and ongoing sexual crimes case continues to unfold more than a year after Epstein committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell. Epstein was arrested in 2008 after a lengthy investigation by the Palm Beach police and the FBI, on suspicion of sexual crimes against underage girls, including sex trafficking and trafficking.

Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and one of the foremost experts on criminal law, was part of the defense team that secured a plea bargain under which Epstein served only 13 months in prison. Not only that, but under Florida law, Epstein received permission to continue working for much of his time in prison, so six days a week he would leave prison at 8 a.m. and come back at 8 p.m.

The years after the plea bargain were filled with failed attempts to secure justice by dozens of women who claimed to be victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Most of them were minors from tough backgrounds. After a series of investigative journalism articles, authorities in the US launched legal proceedings against Epstein and in July 2019 he was arrested again. The details of the plea bargain were reexamined, both by the public and legally.

The deal was characterized as a "sweetheart deal," in which one side is given far-reaching easements at the expense of the other sides and the good of the public. It was strongly criticized, and a New York federal court ruled that the victims had been deceived and their rights violated. Then-Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, which in 2008 had been the federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida and approved the deal, was forced to resign. Shortly after Epstein was arrested, the prosecutor for the Southern District of New York decided to try him on serious criminal charges such as sex trafficking of minors, conspiracy to traffic women, and bribing witnesses.

On Aug. 10, 2019, Epstein was found in his jail cell, having hanged himself. But the affair wasn't over. Three months ago, the FBI managed to locate and arrest Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell. For years, people have claimed that she was allegedly a partner in Epstein's sex industry. Maxwell, Epstein's ex-girlfriend who maintained close ties with him, is being accused, among other things, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illicit sex acts and conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. She denies all the claims being made against her. After the affair came to light, Netflix produced the documentary series Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, which premiered this past May.

Giuffre's claims against Dershowitz were first raised at the end of 2014 during legal proceedings after several victims claimed that the prosecutors and the court in the Epstein case had not presented them with the details of Epstein's plea bargain or allowed them to express their opinions about it before it was signed, as the law on victims' rights requires. Giuffre, anonymously at the time, claimed that Epstein had sex trafficked her, and in her accusations mentioned Dershowitz's name. Giuffree claims that she had sex with Dershowitz at least six times – at Epstein's home in New Mexico; on one of his private planes, and on Epstein's private island Little St. James, which was also called Orgy Island or Pedophile Island, among other locations.

Dershowitz says he never heard those names for the island, although he had heard it called "Little St. Jeff."

"The original accusation was at the end of 2014, but I won that. It was over. Nobody knew she had made a false accusation. Her lawyers settled the lawsuit with me and admitted it was wrong. Then came the #MeToo movement and it all got resurrected, and then came Netflix, and that was the final blow that persuaded many people that it must be true. But the accusation has become more believed since Netflix and the #MeToo movement than it was before.

Dershowitz explains that because Giuffree's claims originally appeared in internal court documents, he had no legal recourse. He demanded that the court expunge them because he had no way of defending himself against the allegations.

"The federal judge struck the accusation from the record as irrelevant and impertinent, and Giuffre's lawyers admitted it had been a 'mistake' for her to file it," he writes in his book.

But later, Dershowitz said, details started being leaked to the media. He is convinced that Giuffre and her lawyer were doing it intentionally. Dershowitz was asked to respond, and then parts of the lies started to come to light.

On-camera accusations

Giuffre sued Dershowitz for his adamant repudiation of her accusations after they were reported in the media. He immediately counter-sued.

"I couldn't sue her originally because all of her accusations were made in court papers [litigation privilege]. So I waited until she made the accusations on Netflix and then I amended the lawsuit because that's not privileged. What she said on Netflix is clear defamation. She claimed she had sex with me six times – I never met her. Categorically, I will swear on the life of my children and grandchildren. I never touched her, never had sex with her, never to my knowledge met her. Totally made-up story from beginning to end.

"I've had 10,000 students, probably 3,000 or 4,000 of whom were women. Many research assistants who were women. Many colleagues who were women. No one has ever made even an allegation of touching or an improper joke or anything.

In the Netflix series, Giuffre makes her accusations explicitly, on camera, which allowed Dershowitz to sue her in the Southern District Federal Court of New York, which he did in June. He is demanding, in addition to damages, that "every single detail of her claims against me and my detailed responses be made part of the legal proceeding, in front of a jury."

Q: In June, you sent Netflix a letter, warning them you would sue because they had broadcast her accusations.

"The director said, 'Why don't you challenge her to accuse you on camera?' I said, yeah, I'll be happy to do that because that way, if she [Giuffre] accuses me on camera, I can sue her and she can't say she only accused me in court papers. I said, I'll say it on camera if you promise to give me an opportunity to respond. And she [the director] did, in front of my wife. She didn't give me the opportunity. That's why we're suing them. We're suing them for breach of contract. Also, they didn't have to wait for my book to know. They had in their possession – I had already given them – the emails, the tape of the lawyer, the tape of her best friend. They promised me in writing that they would use all of that material. They didn't use it on the show at all.

"We have emails where she's being told who I am," he says. In one, Giuffre asks a journalist, via email, "Just wondering if you have any information on you from when you and I were doing interviews about the JE story. I wanted to put the names of some of these …. JE sent me to."

The journalist responds: "Don't forget Alan Dershowitz ... JE's buddy and lawyer. Good name for your pitch as he repped Claus von Bulow and a movie was made about that case … title was Reversal of Fortune. We all suspect Alan is a pedo and tho no proof of that, you probably met him when he was hanging out w JE."

Giuffre responds: 'Thanks again… I'm bringing down the house with this book!!!"

What's more, Dershowitz says, "Her best friend has a tape where [Giuffre] admitted that she never wanted to include me, because I never met her, but she was pressured to include me by her lawyers. I have a tape of her lawyer saying she's wrong, simply wrong, that I couldn't have been in the places she said I was in, that she clearly made a mistake. He argues it was a mistake. He admits it was wrong for her to accuse me.

"My accuser made up a whole story about Al Gore. Virginia Giuffre has this long account in her book of how she had dinner with Al Gore and Tipper Gore on Jeffrey Epstein's island. Only one problem – Al Gore and Tipper Gore never met Jeffrey Epstein, didn't know him, were never on the island. She got paid $160,000 [from the Daily Mail] to make up that and other stories about innocent people like Al Gore, and they [Netflix] didn't run that, either."

"I want everything out, every piece of paper. Every document, every interview, everything. I want it to be made public because I have nothing to hide. My life is an open book.

"We can account for every single day of my life between the day Giuffre met Jeffrey Epstein and the day she left, two and a half years. I can prove where I was on that day and where I wasn't. I have American Express records, telephone records, cell phone records, TV appearance records, records of my teaching, records of my court appearances, and I can prove that it is literally impossible for me to have been in the places where she claims she had sex with me seven times.

"I have never done anything wrong in my private life. Period. I have never hugged a woman inappropriately, I've never touched a woman inappropriately. During the relevant period, I've had sexual contact with one person, my wife. I have nothing to hide. I don't think that's true of all the other people who are being accused. I understand why people who have something to hide would say, 'Let's just let this thing slide away.'

"But I've lived a completely open and honorable private life. I'm controversial in my public life. Defending President Trump is very controversial. Defending O.J. Simpson is very controversial. But my private life has been without blemish. Fifty years at Harvard, not a single complaint. I had 25 female research assistants, 25 female secretaries, I've worked with women all over the world – not a single complaint ever. I think almost none of the other people who are accused can say that.

"If you've been falsely accused but you did things you're embarrassed about, maybe the best thing is just 'No comment.' But if you've falsely accused like me and you did nothing, period, you have nothing to hide, your life is an open book, you have to fight back, and I'm fighting back."