Alan Dershowitz, Law Professors

Alan Dershowitz's Accuser Swears By Her Story Of Sexual Misconduct

The suspense builds as observers wait for either side to actually make good on their promises of proof.

By  
on

The woman who accused Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz of having sexual relations with her while she was a minor has filed a declaration in federal court in the Southern District of Florida this week.  In her declaration, she affirms her earlier allegations and fills in a few more details about her alleged encounters with Dershowitz.  The woman is believed to be Virginia Roberts, based on her self-disclosure to media sources.

Dershowitz has vigorously defended himself against the allegations since they appeared in a December 30 motion to join additional plaintiffs to an ongoing Crime Victims’ Rights Act suit against the United States.  Virginia Roberts, identified in the motion as Jane Doe #3, is one of the women asking to join the suit.  The plaintiffs in the CVRA suit claim that federal prosecutors violated the plaintiffs’ rights by secretly negotiating a sweetheart plea deal with billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.  On January 5, Dershowitz filed a declaration with the court, disputing the charges of sexual wrongdoing.

The affidavit by Virginia Roberts was executed on January 19, 2015, and entered on the court docket on January 21.  Roberts begins, “When I was little, I loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian.  But my life took a very different turn when adults began to be interested in having sex with me.”  She then weaves a disturbing tale allegedly beginning when heiress and Epstein pal Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her, at the age of 15, to receive training in giving “massages” to Jeffrey Epstein and his friends.  Roberts, on page 6, clarifies the affidavit’s repeated use of scare quotes by stating, “Epstein’s code word for sexual encounters was that is was a ‘massage’.”  Lest there by any doubt of what she means.  The alleged victim further claims:

“In addition to constantly finding underage girls to satisfy their personal desires, Epstein and Maxwell also got girls for Epstein’s friends and acquaintances.  Epstein specifically told me that the reason for him doing this was so that they would “owe him,” they would “be in his pocket,” and he would “have something on them.”  I understood him to mean that when someone was in his pocket, they owed him favors.  I also understood that Epstein thought he could get leniency if he was ever caught doing anything illegal, or more so that he could escape trouble altogether.”

Beginning on page 7 of the declaration, Roberts describes her alleged sexual encounters with Dershowitz:

24.    Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz was around Epstein frequently.  Dershowitz was so comfortable with the sex that was going on that he would even come and chat with Epstein while I was giving oral sex to Epstein.

25.    I had sexual intercourse with Dershowitz at least six times. The first time was when I was about 16, early on in my servitude to Epstein, and it continued until I was 19.

26.    The first time we had sex took place in New York in Epstein’s home. It was in Epstein’s room (not the massage room). I was approximately 16 years old at the time. I called Dershowitz “Alan.” I knew he was a famous professor.

27.    The second time that I had sex with Dershowitz was at Epstein’s house in Palm Beach. During this encounter, Dershowitz instructed me to both perform oral sex and have sexual intercourse.

28.    I also had sex with Dershowitz at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico in the massage room off of the indoor pool area, which was still being painted.

29.    We also had sex at Little Saint James Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I was asked to give Dershowitz a massage on the beach. Dershowitz then asked me to take him somewhere more private, where we proceeded to have intercourse.

30.    Another sexual encounter between me and Dershowitz happened on Epstein’s airplane. Another girl was present on the plane with us.

31.    I have recently seen a former Harvard law professor identified as Alan Dershowitz on television calling me a “liar.” He is lying by denying that he had sex with me.  That man is the same man that I had sex with at least six times.

In the declaration Dershowitz swore to on January 5,  he insists, “Jane Doe #3 is a serial liar, whose uncorrobrated [sic] word should never be credited.”  Dershowitz criticized Paul Cassell and Brad Edwards, lawyers for Roberts and the other alleged victims, telling the New York Times, “They are lying deliberately, and I will not stop until they’re disbarred.”  Cassell and Edwards subsequently filed defamation claims against Dershowitz for his public proclamation.

Sponsored

The additional details in this week’s declaration by Virginia Roberts could supply Dershowitz a bit more material with which to defend himself.

For example, some of the new details proffered in Roberts’s affidavit help to pinpoint the time periods during which she alleges the sexual activity with Dershowitz took place.  She claims that one encounter took place at Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico in “the massage room off of the indoor pool area, which was still being painted.”  Investigation might reveal when that portion of Epstein’s ranch was renovated, giving a slightly more defined window of time for the alleged conduct to have taken place.  Dershowitz could then rebut the claims with evidence that he was not present in those locations at those times.  Indeed, in his declaration, Dershowitz himself states that he “was in that house only once while it was under construction,” but he insists that he is prepared to offer “the names of unimpeachable witnesses who would have contradicted Jane Doe #3’s false account.”

Roberts also alleges that “another girl was present on the plane” during a sexual encounter between Roberts and Dershowitz.  This detail should allow the supposed witness to testify to what she saw or didn’t see, if indeed such a witness was there at all.  This claim seems to directly oppose Dershowitz’s sworn statement from January 5 which states:

“Jane Doe #3 has accused me of having sex with her on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane. That is a deliberate lie. I was on that plane on several occassions [sic] as the manifests will show, but never under circumstances where it would have been possible to have sex with Jane Doe #3. On a couple of occassions [sic] I was on his plane with my wife and daughter. On another occasion, I was on the plane with my nephew and several older people going to see a launch at Cape Kennedy. On several other occassions, [sic], after the alleged events at issue, I was on the plane with members of Mr. Epstein’s legal team flying down to perform legal services. Had his lawyers called me, I would have provided them this information and told them to check the manifests. There were never any young girls on the plane during any of my trips.”

Unless Roberts is referring to Dershowitz’s daughter when she refers to “another girl” on the plane, or Dershowitz defines “young” girls differently than Roberts . . . someone is lying.

Sponsored

Roberts offers in her affidavit, “If a judge wants me to present my information in more detail, including more specific descriptions of the sexual activities with the men Epstein sent me to, I could do so.”  Meanwhile, Dershowitz not only maintains his innocence but also affirms that, if lawyers Cassell and Edwards had “done any reasonable investigation of their client’s false allegations, they would have found absolute proof” that Dershowitz “could not have done and did not do any of the heinous things they allege [he] did in the pleading.”

Neither side appears to be backing down from their respective claims.  Each side pledges they can produce evidence to support their version of events.  The suspense builds as observers wait for either side to actually make good on their promises of proof.

(Flip to the next page to see the affidavit.)

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.

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , , , , , , , , ,