Virginia Giuffre v. Alan Dershowitz
In 2019, Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre sued Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer, for defamation. She said he sexually assaulted her multiple times while she was as young as 16 and being sex-trafficked by Epstein — whom she claimed in the complaint “lent [her] out” to have sex with other men — and that he then called her a liar when she went public with the allegations.
Dershowitz denied the claims and countersued Giuffre, saying her allegations were “lies, disparagement, defamation, harassment,” and that she’d been pressured by her lawyers to make false accusations against him (accusations which, themselves, drew their own defamation suit from Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies).
On 29 December, the BBC called Dershowitz to comment on the Maxwell verdict, without acknowledging the accusation or his prior status as one of Epstein’s attorneys.
He used the opportunity to point out that Giuffre had not been called as a witness in Maxwell’s criminal trial, and to suggest this was because she is untruthful. “The government was very careful who it used as witnesses,” Dershowitz said, before referring — unprompted — to his connection to the case. “It did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, accused me, accused many other people, because the government didn’t believe she was telling the truth.”
The news organization released a statement walking back the segment after it aired.
“Mr. Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience,” the statement said in part.
