Alan Dershowitz, Law Professors, Sex Scandals

A Second Look At The Allegations Against Alan Dershowitz

Until we get more evidence, we should reserve judgment on the allegations against Alan Dershowitz.

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In filings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida last week, a woman alleged that she was repeatedly sexually abused by Harvard Law professor emeritus and criminal defense icon Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz insists he is the “innocent victim of an extortion conspiracy” and vociferously denies the allegations, as discussed by David Lat earlier in these pages.

The allegations pertain to Dershowitz’s involvement with financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of paying underage girls for sex, sometimes forcing them to perform sexual acts for Epstein’s friends and associates. Though the reputed billionaire and pal to the rich and powerful was accused of luring dozens of underage girls into his sexual service, Epstein served only 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to a single state charge of soliciting prostitution.

Several women who claim they were victimized by Epstein are suing the U.S. government under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA) because they believe prosecutors handed Epstein a sweetheart plea deal while disregarding the rights of Epstein’s victims to participate in the proceedings. Last week, lawyers representing the women moved to join more alleged victims to their suit. One of the new alleged victims, Jane Doe #3, claims that “Epstein kept Jane Doe #3 as his sex slave from about 1999 through 2002, when she managed to escape to a foreign country and hide out from Epstein and his co-conspirators for years.” Last week’s motion further claims:

Epstein also sexually trafficked the then-minor Jane Doe, making her available for sex to politically-connected and financially-powerful people. Epstein’s purposes in “lending” Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information.

One such powerful individual that Epstein forced then-minor Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with was former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a close friend of Epstein’s and well-known criminal defense attorney. Epstein required Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with Dershowitz on numerous occasions while she was a minor, not only in Florida, but also on private planes, in New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In addition to being a participant in the abuse of Jane Doe #3 and other minors, De[r]showitz was an eye-witness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s co-conspirators.

How Seriously Should We Take The Accusations?

In the wake of Lena Dunham’s misleading sexual assault narrative in her recent memoir and Rolling Stone’s failed fact-checking on UVA rape allegations, uncritically accepting accounts of sexual misconduct is naive. There is a troubling trend among young women: a personal account of sexual violence is a badge of feminism, if not a cudgel against men who one might want to hurt. As observers, we teeter between applauding a victim’s bravery in coming forward and scrutinizing her claimed status as victim. The accuser should not be stigmatized for reporting the crime, but the accused should not be stigmatized before he has an opportunity to present evidence in his defense. We don’t like rape, and we want to be really clear about that. But more and more, we find ourselves needing to make clear that we don’t like false rape accusations either. I admit that I am more skeptical now than I have ever been when an accusation makes headlines.

So, how cynical should we be about the allegations against Dershowitz? Should commentators start riffing on the idea that this is yet another instance of a woman emerging years after the fact with an inflammatory accusation motivated by greed or bitterness? Not necessarily. There are a few reasons to think that this is not the sort of sex crime claim conservative pundits (myself included) warned you about.

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1. The people who made the allegations public appear credible.

Dershowitz told the Wall Street Journal that he intends to initiate disbarment proceedings against the attorneys representing the alleged victims for failing to diligently investigate the women’s claims. Even if the allegations against Dershowitz are false, though, it’s not clear that the lawyers representing the women are either incompetent or malicious.

Paul Cassell and Bradley Edwards represent the plaintiffs in the CVRA suit. Edwards is a Florida attorney representing Epstein’s victims pro bono. Cassell is a University of Utah law professor focusing on crime victims’ rights. He argued before SCOTUS on behalf of child pornography victim Amy Unknown in last term’s Paroline v. United States, for example. He is a former D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court clerk, and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney. Most notably, Cassell is a former U.S. District Judge. Neither he nor Edwards are amateurs.

In a statement on Friday, Cassell stood behind his work in the case and looked forward to reading any affidavits Dershowitz might file.

2. Many of Epstein’s victims, including Jane Doe #3, have been forthcoming with details of their abuse for many years.

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Jane Doe #3 is Virginia Roberts, a young woman who has since 2007 spoken publicly about her supposed years of sex slavery. While the formal allegations in court last week are terse, Roberts has given vivid accounts of how Epstein allegedly forced her into sexual encounters with himself and other men, including the UK’s Prince Andrew.

3. The allegations against Dershowitz are direct and specific.

The CVRA suit claims that Epstein “trafficked Jane Doe #3 for sexual purposes to many other powerful men, including numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister, and other world leaders,” but few are identified in last week’s motion. Dershowitz is. Only Prince Andrew, heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, and modeling agent Jean Luc Bunel are also called out by name. Roberts claims that Epstein used Maxwell and Bunel to recruit his young victims. If counsel for the CVRA plaintiffs chose to single out only those individuals against whom they had the strongest evidence, Dershowitz may be in trouble.

4. Dershowitz defended Epstein.

As a member of Epstein’s defense team, Dershowitz arranged the deal that kept the victims from telling their tales in court, but sent Epstein to prison on only a relatively minor charge. According to the CVRA plaintiffs, “Dershowitz helped negotiate an agreement that provided immunity from federal prosecution in the Southern District of Florida not only to Epstein, but also to ‘any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.” If the allegations against Dershowitz are true, he engineered an agreement that insulated himself from prosecution as a co-conspirator.

Of course, none of these facts prove that Alan Dershowitz had sex with an underage woman offered to him by Jeffrey Epstein. Dershowitz, like anyone accused of sexual misconduct, deserves the opportunity to respond to properly presented evidence — and Dershowitz has already launched an aggressive campaign to challenge the allegations against him, allegations that he forcefully denies. In this case, all the evidence is not yet publicly known. Until we know more, the allegations against Dershowitz should be taken seriously, even by those of us who are more and more cautious about high-profile sex crime accusations.

Earlier: Alan Dershowitz Fights Back Against Allegations Of Sexual Relations With A Minor

Tamara Tabo is a summa cum laude graduate of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the school’s law review. After graduation, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She currently heads the Center for Legal Pedagogy at Texas Southern University, an institute applying cognitive science to improvements in legal education. You can reach her at tabo.atl@gmail.com.

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