Dershowitz Sues Netflix For Making Him Look... Not Great!

No small feat when you read this nutty complaint.

(Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Hulu)

Alan Dershowitz is mad. Why didn’t those meanies at Netflix allow him to use their film about Jeffrey Epstein to launder all his claims about attorney David Boies and his former client Virginia Giuffre Roberts, the woman who says Dersh had sex with her when she was underaged? Clearly that is defamation, and he would like $80 million to make him whole, please and thank you!

Yesterday the retired Harvard law professor sued Netflix and the producers of the four-part miniseries Filthy Rich in the Southern District of Florida alleging defamation, breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and fraudulent inducement.

This complaint is… a journey.

Dershowitz begins by detailing his work getting Epstein a sweetheart deal in 2006 (a career high point?), but quickly veers off into ranting about Boies, his arch nemesis, including a rehash of the allegation that Boies participated in a scheme with Giuffre to shake down billionaire Les Wexner. It’s a ballsy move, coming just a few pages before he accuses Giuffre of abusing the litigation privilege to claim he raped her in another lawsuit, particularly since Wexner has vehemently denied the claim.

The gravamen of Dersh’s case appears to be an allegation that producers led the professor to believe that all of his evidence of Giuffre’s perfidy would be included in the series. It doesn’t actually say anything like that in the four corners of the release contract, but Dershowitz claims that producer Lisa Bryant “repeatedly and expressly promised” to make sure every bit of it made the final cut.

Does Jewish Geography count as fraudulent inducement? Asking for a well-known alter cocker about town.

In subsequent discussions about the series, Bryant said she was on Professor Dershowitz’s side and that an associate producer, Berlinger, would also be supportive of Professor Dershowitz, as Berlinger was related to a friend of Professor Dershowitz.

Plus Bryant, like, triple dog dared him to shit talk Giuffre on camera. And how was an 80-year-old eminence grise supposed to counter that?

During the interview of Professor Dershowitz for the Netflix Epstein series, Bryant suggested that Professor Dershowitz directly challenge Giuffre to accuse him of misconduct on camera (as she had previously only done so through liability-insulated judicial proceedings). Professor Dershowitz said he would do so on three conditions. First, Bryant would expressly include the fact that Professor Dershowitz issued this challenge in order to be able to sue her outside the litigation privilege. Second, Bryant would tell Professor Dershowitz if Giuffre accepted Professor Dershowitz’s challenge. Third, Bryant would give Professor Dershowitz an opportunity to respond directly to Giuffre, on camera, if Giuffre accepted Professor Dershowitz’s challenge and accused Professor Dershowitz on camera. Bryant expressly agreed to these conditions, but, as will be explained infra, subsequently broke her agreement as to all of these conditions.

Totally normal.

Dershowitz claims that airing Giuffre’s allegations alongside his denial but without his magnum opus is defamatory because “It wasn’t a ‘he said/she said’ situation, however, given Professor Dershowitz’s totality of the evidence establishing he never had sex with Giuffre.” And failing to include footage of him Zapruder-ing Epstein’s flight logs constitutes “malicious, deliberate, knowing, conscious publication of defamatory accusations, by witnesses known by Defendants to be non-credible, edited and presented in such a manner to bolster the credibility of the accusers and preclude any consideration of relevant, material, exculpatory evidence, thus constituting defamation as well as defamation by implication.”

All of which has caused the poor plaintiff “personal and professional reputational harm, lost business opportunities, emotional harm, embarrassment, humiliation and pain and suffering.” Ye gods!

The professor doesn’t explain how he intends to quantify the damage from this film specifically, as distinct from the harm he did to his own reputation in the past three years of uncontrolled batshittery. But he does refer to “social media posts taunting Professor Dershowitz over liking having sex with underage girls.”

How much are mean tweets worth to a semi-retired octogenarian who seems to spend most of his time doing Fox and Newsmax hits and offering advice to such luminaries as the MyPillow guy?

Just $80 million. NBD.

And, PS, since we know Professor Dershowitz gets tetchy about it, we’ll stipulate that the plaintiff kept his panties on during the entirety of this lawsuit.

Dershowitz v. Netflix [Docket via Court Listener]


Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.