Lawyer Dershowitz: claims stories made-up
Mr. Dershowitz took the step of claiming that Jane Doe, so named in court papers filed in Florida last week to protect her name, is in essence making up tales of sex with minors made against public figures, and doing so with her lawyers for the purposes of extortion. He urges Prince Andrew to fight back against the claims of the woman, now believed to be in her 30s.
“The story is totally made up. I don’t know this woman, it is part of a pattern of made-up stories against prominent people and world leaders,” the well-known criminal lawyer said in a statement. “I want to see this played out not only in the court of public opinion but in the court of law.
“I will prove beyond any doubt not only that the story is totally false but it was knowingly false, that the lawyers and the client conspired together to create a false story,” he added. “That’s why I’m moving for their disbarment. I will swear under oath – and I challenge them to swear under oath – that it did not happen.
“I will not rest or stop until the world understands not only that I had nothing to do with any of this but that she deliberately, with the connivance of her lawyers, made up this story wilfully and knowingly.”
Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal
The woman, through her lawyers and the court papers, has said that while a minor she was forced to engage in sexual activities between the years 1999 and 2002 in London, in New York and on a private Caribbean island owned by Jeffrey Epstein, who had a controversial friendship with Prince Andrew that received considerable press in past years, and whose lawyer is Alan Dershowitz.
Mr. Epstein is a billionaire financier and well-known for the funding of science projects who’s been accused of sexual solicitations of minors before. He served 13-months of an 18-month jail sentence for soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, though he claimed he did not know he solicited girls underage and passed a lie-detector test to that effect.
He’s at the center of allegations that are part of a case in West Palm Beach, Florida, now in discovery phase, in which federal prosecutors are accused of wrongly not including alleged victims of Mr. Epstein during their negotiations of that 18-month deal in 2008; that deal. was given to Epstein in exchange for a guilty plea.
Jane Doe has now struck back at Mr. Dershowitz and said his statements accusing her and her lawyers of conspiring to create false stories of sexual solicitation of minors are totally false. She won’t turn back, she said.
“These types of aggressive attacks on me are exactly the reason why sexual abuse victims typically remain silent and the reason why I did for a long time,” Jane Doe said in a statement through her lawyers. “That trend should change. I’m not going to be bullied back into silence.”
Prince Andrew denies allegations
Buckingham Palace issued a statement saying that Prince Andrew did not involve himself in sex with minors. “This relates to longstanding and ongoing civil proceedings in the United States, to which the Duke of York is not a party,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “As such we would not comment on the detail. However, for the avoidance of doubt, any suggestion of impropriety with under-age minors is categorically untrue.”
Mr. Dershowitz said that Prince Andrew, whom he said he has met but only at a few social gatherings and they were never alone with any women whatsoever, should be prepared to fight for his good name.
“If she’s lied about me, which I know to an absolute certainty she has, she should not be believed about anyone else,” he said of Jane Doe. “We know she’s lied about other public figures, including a former prime minister and others who she claims to have participated in sexual activities with, so I think it must be presumed all her allegations against Prince Andrew were false as well.
“You cannot allow these allegations to hang above you. The first question you have to ask yourself when you are charged with a crime like this is, ‘Is there any conceivable possibility you did it?'” he said.
“And if the answer to that is ‘No’, you have to fight back with every resource and ounce of energy available to you.”
