Virginia Giuffre, a sufferer of Jeffrey E. Epstein who for years maintained that the legislation professor Alan Dershowitz had sexually assaulted her when she was a youngster, settled a defamation lawsuit in opposition to Mr. Dershowitz on Tuesday and mentioned that she might need “made a mistake” in accusing him.
In a joint assertion saying the settlement, Ms. Giuffre mentioned, “I’ve lengthy believed that I used to be trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz. Nonetheless, I used to be very younger on the time, it was a really annoying and traumatic atmosphere, and Mr. Dershowitz has from the start persistently denied these allegations.
“I now acknowledge I could have made a mistake in figuring out Mr. Dershowitz,” her assertion mentioned.
The joint assertion introduced the top of litigation between Ms. Giuffre and Mr. Dershowitz — who had additionally sued her — in addition to of two different lawsuits between Mr. Dershowitz and the lawyer David Boies that stemmed from Ms. Giuffre’s accusation.
Ms. Giuffre had sued Mr. Dershowitz on the grounds that he had made defamatory statements about her after her accusation. Her lawyer wouldn’t touch upon the assertion however confirmed that the settlement had been reached. A doc confirming that Ms. Giuffre had agreed to dismiss her case was filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Manhattan Tuesday afternoon.
“She has suffered a lot by the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and I commend her work combating the evil of intercourse trafficking,” Mr. Dershowitz mentioned of Ms. Giuffre in his personal assertion.
And Mr. Boies, who has represented Ms. Giuffre, although not on this matter, mentioned that “the time has come to finish this litigation” and that Mr. Dershowitz “has suffered drastically from the allegation of sexual abuse made in opposition to him — an allegation that he has persistently and vehemently denied.”
The phrases of Ms. Giuffre’s take care of Mr. Dershowitz weren’t instantly clear on Tuesday, although the assertion and the courtroom submitting mentioned that no funds had been made by any of the events.
The settlement of the defamation lawsuit, which was filed in 2019, and Ms. Giuffre’s accompanying assertion represented a exceptional turnabout for Mr. Dershowitz, who has been making an attempt to resuscitate his status since Ms. Giuffre first made her declare publicly in 2014. Her accusations in opposition to Mr. Epstein have been corroborated.
A longtime buddy of Mr. Epstein, Mr. Dershowitz defended the financier after he was first arrested and charged with intercourse trafficking, attacking his shopper’s younger accusers, and in 2008, helped to win a lenient plea deal for Mr. Epstein. After pleading responsible to 2 prostitution costs in state courtroom, Mr. Epstein served a couple of yr in a Florida jail, leaving confinement six days every week to work out of his workplace.
The plea deal was removed from the top of the matter. It led to extra litigation, together with a 2014 lawsuit that sought to have the deal thrown out for violating a federal legislation that required that non-prosecution agreements be shared with the victims of crimes. (A federal choose later decided that prosecutors had damaged the legislation by not sharing the settlement.)
As a part of that lawsuit, Ms. Giuffre first publicly detailed her accusation of Mr. Dershowitz, saying that he had intercourse together with her when she was underage. Her declare prompted livid denials from the lawyer, who till then had been recognized for high-profile defenses of O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bülow, Mike Tyson and others.
The murmurs about Mr. Epstein continued, spurred by reporting from The Miami Herald and new consideration prompted by the #MeToo motion. In 2019, federal prosecutors in New York revived the case in opposition to him, charging him with intercourse trafficking. Earlier than he might be tried, Mr. Epstein dedicated suicide in August 2019.
By then, Ms. Giuffre’s title had turn into extensively recognized. Within the months after Mr. Epstein was charged, a trove of sealed authorized paperwork associated to a defamation lawsuit that Ms. Giuffre filed in opposition to Ghislaine Maxwell turned public. Ms. Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s longtime girlfriend, was later convicted of kid intercourse trafficking and sentenced to twenty years in jail.
Ms. Giuffre additionally sued one other affiliate of Mr. Epstein, Prince Andrew of the British royal household, whom she accused of raping her when she was a youngster. That lawsuit was settled in February. Prince Andrew didn’t admit guilt; he launched an announcement saying that he “regrets his affiliation with Epstein and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and different survivors in standing up for themselves and others.”
Earlier than Mr. Epstein’s 2019 demise in a Manhattan jail cell, Ms. Giuffre sued him too, receiving $500,000 in a settlement.
The deal ended each pairs of lawsuits: Ms. Giuffre’s defamation swimsuit in opposition to Mr. Dershowitz; Mr. Dershowitz’s defamation lawsuit in opposition to Ms. Giuffre; Mr. Boies’s defamation lawsuit in opposition to Mr. Dershowitz, filed in 2019; and Mr. Dershowitz’s countersuit in opposition to Mr. Boies, filed early the next yr.
The fits between Mr. Boies and Mr. Dershowitz had been associated to Ms. Giuffre’s accusations. Mr. Boies sued Mr. Dershowitz for saying that Mr. Boies had manufactured the allegations as a part of a plot to extort cash from the billionaire Leslie Wexner, whose funds had been managed by Mr. Epstein. Mr. Dershowitz reiterated these accusations in his January 2021 lawsuit.
These fits had been shifting forward, with Mr. Boies questioning Mr. Dershowitz underneath oath in late September in a session that Mr. Dershowitz lower off abruptly, citing well being considerations.
In a follow-up interview, Mr. Boies mentioned that whereas he stood by his assertion about Mr. Dershowitz, “My accusations in opposition to him stand unretracted, and his allegations in opposition to me are actually retracted.”
Mr. Dershowitz has lengthy been a authorized movie star. He first entered the highlight when, at 28, he turned the youngest professor ever to work at Harvard Regulation College.
His profile grew in tandem along with his well-known shoppers, and he appeared in protection of the trial of Patricia Hearst, a kidnapped heiress, and Mr. Von Bülow. The Danish-born socialite was convicted of getting tried to homicide his spouse however appealed efficiently with Mr. Dershowitz’s assist. Mr. Dershowitz’s 1985 guide concerning the case, “Reversal of Fortune,” contributed to his rising fame.
In most circumstances, Mr. Dershowitz welcomed public battle; a champion of Israel, he appeared at public debates on the nation’s politics and relished the (usually unfavourable) consideration that got here with illustration of his well-known shoppers.
However Ms. Giuffre’s accusation, although it was by no means confirmed and no felony costs ever arose from it, was associated to Mr. Dershowitz’s non-public life reasonably than his work.
After Ms. Giuffre first made her accusation public, within the 2014 lawsuit, Mr. Dershowitz informed The Instances that he regretted taking Mr. Epstein’s case “in gentle of all the pieces that has occurred.”