Giuffre v. Dershowitz

Virginia L. Giuffre filed Giuffre v. Dershowitz in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 16, 2019, captioned as a single-count defamation action with diversity jurisdiction. The complaint, filed under docket 1:19-cv-03377, alleged that Alan Dershowitz, who had served as one of Jeffrey Epstein's defense attorneys during the 2007-2008 federal investigation in the Southern District of Florida, repeatedly told national media that the plaintiff was a 'liar' and a 'prostitute' who had fabricated her allegations against him for money. The complaint asserted that Dershowitz had himself sexually abused the plaintiff after Epstein 'lent' her to him, and that his subsequent public denials constituted defamation per se (EFTA00027034, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017937, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017941).

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska, who already presided over the related Giuffre v. Maxwell defamation case (15-cv-07433). Plaintiff was represented by David Boies, Sigrid McCawley, and Joshua Schiller of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, and later by Cooper & Kirk PLLC (Charles J. Cooper, Michael W. Kirk, Nicole J. Moss, Haley N. Proctor) and Todd & Weld LLP (Howard Cooper, Christian Kiely). Dershowitz was represented by Imran H. Ansari and Arthur L. Aidala of Aidala Bertuna & Kamins PC, and by former judge Barry Kamins. Dershowitz filed counterclaims for defamation against Giuffre and moved to disqualify Boies Schiller Flexner from representing her, citing a 2015 contact in which a Boies Schiller partner had briefly offered to represent Dershowitz before declining due to a conflict (EFTA00071794, EFTA00071795). Judge Preska initially struck the disqualification motion for procedural reasons but reinstated it in June 2019, ultimately allowing the firm to continue representing Giuffre.

Discovery in the case was contested. Dershowitz sought pre-answer access to sealed materials in Giuffre v. Maxwell, prompting briefing in both dockets in late 2019 and June 2020 in which Maxwell's counsel and non-party John Doe objected to broad unsealing (EFTA02781412, EFTA02781908). Cooper & Kirk took over as plaintiff's counsel and moved for leave to file an amended complaint on December 20, 2019 (EFTA00027034, EFTA00027035). A status conference before Judge Preska took place on December 2, 2019 (EFTA00092688, EFTA00092689). The litigation continued for over three years before resolving by settlement on November 8, 2022. The agreed joint statement, widely reported in the press, said that Giuffre 'may have made a mistake in identifying' Dershowitz and that Dershowitz withdrew his accusations of perjury and extortion; both sides described the resolution as one in which they 'regret' their statements. No money changed hands publicly and neither side conceded the underlying factual question.

The EFTA corpus contains the publicly filed pleadings, exhibits, and a small amount of internal correspondence from Giuffre v. Dershowitz, alongside a substantial volume of cross-referenced material from Giuffre v. Maxwell, the JPMorgan litigation, and the Florida Bar complaint Dershowitz filed against plaintiff's counsel. The complaint itself (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017937, _017941, _017945, _017949, _017953, _017957, _017961) lays out plaintiff's defamation theory in detail, including the allegation that Dershowitz participated in negotiating the 2008 non-prosecution agreement and was 'lent out' Epstein's victims. The complaint cites household employee testimony from Juan Alessi and Alfredo Rodriguez placing Dershowitz at Epstein's homes when underage girls were present, an affidavit from Maria Farmer (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018027) describing Dershowitz visiting Epstein's New York mansion 'a number of times' while school-age girls were upstairs, and a 2017 affidavit from University of Utah law professor Paul G. Cassell submitted in Dershowitz's Florida Bar proceeding against David Boies and Sigrid McCawley (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016198, _016202). Exhibits to the complaint include a 2006 letter from Florida criminal-defense attorney Guy Fronstin to the Palm Beach State Attorney identifying Dershowitz as 'serving as counsel' to Fronstin in his representation of Epstein (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017998), and contemporaneous Miami Herald and Law&Crime reporting on the Epstein non-prosecution agreement and on Dershowitz's televised denials (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017966, _017970, _017974, _017978, _017989).

The corpus also captures the procedural mechanics of the disqualification fight and the unsealing dispute. A June 2019 internal email thread between unidentified DOJ personnel forwards Law360's coverage of Judge Preska's order reinstating Dershowitz's motion to disqualify Boies Schiller (EFTA00071794, EFTA00071795). Briefing in the parallel 15-cv-07433 docket from Maxwell's counsel Ty Gee of Haddon Morgan and Foreman addresses Dershowitz's request for pre-answer discovery from the Maxwell file (EFTA02781412, EFTA02781908). A September 2019 letter to Judge Berman in the Epstein criminal case from Fordham Law professor Bruce A. Green (DOJ-OGR-00000726) clarifies that Green served as an expert witness for Dershowitz on the disqualification motion. The corpus does not contain the November 2022 settlement agreement, the joint statement of regret, or the parties' depositions; those documents either remained under seal or were never produced through DOJ channels. As with Giuffre v. Andrew, the substantive PACER docket of this case lives outside the EFTA production, and the corpus material is best read as evidentiary background rather than a complete case file.