Alan Dershowitz’s name has been a feared one in the legal community for nearly 60 years now. Over the course of his storied career, the longtime Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney to the rich and famous has (successfully) represented some of the world’s biggest names, including Mike Tyson, Julian Assange, Harvey Weinstein, and former president Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial.
In 1995, Dershowitz raised his profile even higher when he became part of O.J Simpson’s “Dream Team.” More recently, Dershowitz raised eyebrows when he agreed to represent the now-deceased accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and, according to Vox, “helped negotiate a ‘non-prosecution agreement’ under which Epstein served just 13 months in a county jail, much of it spent on ‘work release’ in an office.” Shortly thereafter, some of the women alleging sexual abuse by Epstein accused Dershowitz of the same. While the 82-year-old attorney has adamantly denied any sexual impropriety, and even countersued for defamation, he recently added one more name to his enemies list: Netflix.
Almost exactly one year to the date of its original release, Deadline reports that Dershowitz has slapped the streaming network with a mind-boggling $80 million lawsuit over its documentary, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich. The docuseries recounts several of the sexual abuse claims against Epstein from the perspective of his alleged victims, including Virginia Giuffre, a woman who said she was hired to work as a masseuse for Epstein when she was just 17 years-old, but “was soon groomed to have sex with Epstein, Dershowitz, and other powerful men as part of a sex-trafficking ring.”
Dershowitz, who once defended Epstein in a Florida case, denies Giuffre’s claims and has called her “a serial liar who has deliberately made up stories about me and others in the hopes of cashing in on millions of dollars.”
His lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Miami federal court, contends that Netflix intentionally misled Dershowitz about his appearance in the documentary. Dershowitz also claims Netflix defamed him by falsely asserting in the series that he had sex with one of Epstein’s victims.
“Giuffre’s accusations that she had sex with Professor Dershowitz are categorically false, and Professor Dershowitz has denied and disproved the accusations—including under oath subject to the penalties of perjury,” the lawsuit says.
Dershowitz’s lawsuit was filed on the same day that Peacock dropped a brand-new trailer for its own Epstein-focused docuseries, the three-part Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell. Though Dershowitz is not mentioned in the trailer, which you can watch below, it’s hard to imagine that he won’t factor into the story in some way.
(Via Deadline)