Epstein Accuser’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Harvard Law Professor Dershowitz Proceeds: Judge Ruling

Samuel Allegri
By Samuel Allegri
October 17, 2019US News
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Epstein Accuser’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Harvard Law Professor Dershowitz Proceeds: Judge Ruling
Attorney Alan Dershowitz leaves Manhattan Federal Court in New York, March 6, 2019. (Frank Franklin II/AP Photo)

A woman who claimed that she was a victim of financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring has been given the green light to move on with a trial for defamation against Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, ruled a judge on Oct. 16.

However, the judge disqualified a law firm representing her—Boies Schiller Flexner, from the case, reported AP.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a woman who accused  Epstein of trafficking her as a teenager to multiple prominent men, including Dershowitz. Roberts said she engaged in sexual activity with Dershowitz several times, but the law professor denies her claims, and has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska rejected Dershowitz’s request and disqualified the law firm that was representing Giuffre because members of the firm could be called as witnesses, a prohibited circumstance.

Sigrid McCawley of the Boies Schiller Flexner firm said that they will appeal the judge’s ruling, and said that the judge’s decision to disqualify them was “deeply disappointing.”

Giuffre sued Dershowitz for defamation after he publicly denied ever meeting Giuffre and called her a “serial perjurer,” a “serial liar,” and a “serial prostitute” in interviews with major media outlets.

“The defamation case against Alan Dershowitz is going forward and he will have to face justice,” McCawley said.

Giuffre expressed her thankfulness to Preska’s decision to deny Dershowitz’s “shameful attempt to dismiss my defamation case against him.”

“I will no longer be silenced. I will no longer be shamed,” said Giuffre. “I will see Alan Dershowitz in a court of law. But I am dismayed by the Court’s decision in this case to deprive me of my counsel.”

Epstein’s Death

At least eight Bureau of Prisons staffers were aware that there were strict instructions not to leave disgraced financier sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alone in his cell, but the order was seemingly disregarded the day before his suicide, said people that knew about the matter, according to the Washington Post.

Investigators are trying to determine why even though so many prison officials—from low-level officers to supervisors and managers—knew about the instructions, there were many people involved who failed to adhere to them, the people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post, on the condition of anonymity. They didn’t name the eight staffers in question.

Investigators think that at least one of the staffers might have known that Epstein was left alone in his cell before his death and are trying to determine the veracity of the knowledge, the sources told the Washington Post.

The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment to the Washington Post.

Robert Hood, a former warden at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo. said, that the situation was “perplexing.”

“If people were given instructions that Epstein should not be left alone, I don’t understand how they were not followed,” he said.

Hood, who has previously served as the Bureau of Prisons’ chief of internal affairs, said: “You’re either on suicide watch or you’re not. If you have any concern at all, you maintain the suicide watch.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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