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Virginia Giuffre Drops Lawsuit Against Alan Dershowitz, Says She May Have Made 'Mistake' Accusing Him Of Sexual Assault
Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre had accused prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz of sexual assault, setting off a series of defamation suits, but Giuffre says, “I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”
Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre permanently dismissed a defamation lawsuit against law professor Alan Dershowitz saying she may have “made a mistake” in accusing him of sexually assaulting her.
As part of the agreement four separate lawsuits were dismissed, including a countersuit brought by Derhowitz and two other suits between the law professor and Giuffre’s attorney David Boies, “without costs or award of fees to either party,” according to a court filing in the case.
After the lawsuits were dropped, the parties released a joint statement to announce the settlement.
“I have long believed that I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz. However, I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment, and Mr. Dershowitz has from the beginning consistently denied these allegations,” Giuffre said according to The New York Times. “I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”
In his own statement, Dershowitz continued to maintain his innocence and commended Giuffre for coming forward to speak out against Epstein—a wealthy convicted sex offender suspected of sexually abusing and sex trafficking dozens of teen girls and young women before his death in 2019.
“As I have said from the beginning, I never had sex with Ms. Giuffre,” Dershowitz said, according to Law & Crime. “I have nevertheless come to believe that at the time she accused me she believed what she said. Ms. Giuffre is to be commended for her courage in now stating publicly that she may have been mistaken about me. She has suffered much at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and I commend her work combating the evil of sex trafficking.”
Giuffre had initially accused Dershowitz of having sex with her when she was underage in 2014.
She filed the defamation suit against him in 2019 after Dershowitz called her a “certified, complete, total liar,” according to the news outlet.
He followed by filing his own defamation suit for making the sexual misconduct claims.
As the legal battle between both sides heated up, Boies—who has represented Giuffre—and Dershowitz, a well-known defense attorney who has previously represented O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, also squared off. Boies filed his own defamation suit against Dershowitz for accusations made as a result of Giuffre’s claims in 2019 and Dershowitz filed his own countersuit against Boies the next year.
As part of the joint statement released by the parties, Dershowitz now said that his “allegations that David Boies engaged in an extortion plot and in suborning perjury were mistaken.”
Boise said he also believes “the time has come to end this litigation and move on.”
“I know that Alan Dershowitz has suffered greatly from the allegation of sexual abuse made against him—an allegation that he has consistently, and vehemently, denied. I also know that this litigation has imposed, and continues to impose, a significant burden on Ms. Giuffre,” he said.
Giuffre has long been outspoken about claims that Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficked her to other men when she was a teenager, including Prince Andrew.
She settled a sexual assault lawsuit against Prince Andrew earlier this year for an undisclosed amount after the famous royal acknowledged he had “regrets” for his past association with Epstein. Prince Andrew, who previously denied sexually assaulting Giuffre, never directly addressed or admitted to the allegations laid out in the lawsuit, according to previous reporting by Oxygen.com.
Epstein—who had previously pleaded guilty in 2008 to two prostitution charges in Florida as part of a lenient plea deal—was later arrested and charged with sex trafficking in 2019 by federal prosecutors. He committed suicide in a Manhattan jail cell as he awaited trial on those charges.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in June after being convicted of five counts related to child sexual abuse and trafficking.
