A Florida judge Tuesday threw out claims that high-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz had sex with minors with help from self-made billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
The bombshell accusations, also leveled against Britain’s Prince Andrew and others, have been vehemently denied by the famed Harvard University professor since they surfaced in a court filing last January. Dershowitz responded in media interviews — saying the accuser should be jailed — and with a pair of federal court filings asking that the claims be thrown out.
In his decision, U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra denied a motion by the alleged victims — “Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4” — to join a lawsuit accusing the federal government of violating their rights by negotiating a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein without consulting them.
Marra wrote in the decision that the “lurid details” of alleged abuse were unnecessary to determining whether the victims could join the lawsuit.
“The factual details regarding with whom and where the Jane Does engaged in sexual activities are immaterial and impertinent to this central claim … especially considering that these details involve non-parties who are not related to the respondent Government. These unnecessary details shall be stricken.”
Speaking of the allegations against him, Dershowitz said Tuesday: “I hope that people will now understand that they were completely false and made up, and, nobody should believe them.”
Buckingham Palace, which in January emphatically denied any form of sexual contact between the Duke of York and a victim it identified as Virginia Roberts, said Prince Andrew was informed of the latest developments.
“He is spending this week privately, before resuming his schedule of public engagements next week. Further details will be announced in due course,” the palace said in a statement.
Roberts’ attorneys were not immediately available for comment.
The federal court filing alleged that “Doe 3” was forced to have sex with several men when she was a teenager. Virginia Roberts made the allegations in a civil motion filed earlier this year in U.S. District Court in southern Florida, joined by another unnamed woman.
While Roberts was not identified by name in the filing, her name was widely reported in the British news media, and Buckingham Palace included it in a statement.
Prince Andrew also denies tie to sex ring
Along with Britain’s Prince Andrew and others, Dershowitz was named in the federal court filing as one of the prominent people who had sexual contact with teenage girls through Epstein.
Epstein, an investment banker, pleaded guilty some years ago in Florida to a state charge of prostitution solicitation, but there were no federal charges after he and authorities signed a non-prosecution agreement.
But some of Epstein’s alleged victims aren’t on board with the deal, thinking he should face stiffer charges and penalties. Four of them took federal prosecutors to court, suing them to reopen the case because they believed their rights under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act were violated by the agreement.
Two of them entered the discussion in January, including the one described as Jane Doe 3. The filing alleged she was a minor when Epstein made her a “sex slave” and made “her available for sex to politically connected and financially powerful people.”
Those big names allegedly included Prince Andrew and Dershowitz.
According to the filing, “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.”
Dershowitz: ‘Totally false’ claims could ‘damage my reputation irrevocably’
The celebrity lawyer and professor subsequently issued an adamant public denial, saying the case “is all about money” and “completely made up.”
He went further in his court filings, including a sworn affidavit in which he said “lawyers for Jane Doe #3 … leveled totally false and outrageous charges against me that have been reported around the world and threaten to damage my reputation irrevocably.”
“Never under any circumstance have I ever had any sexual contact of any kind, which includes massages or any physical contact whatsoever, with Jane Doe #3,” he said.
Dershowitz said, for instance, that his wife and daughter accompanied him on his sole visit to Epstein’s Caribbean island as well as the one time he went to Epstein’s New Mexico house — at which point it was under construction and no girls were visible.
“Let me assert categorically, without reservation and with full awareness of the risks of perjury,” he stated, “that I did not ever, under any circumstances, have any sexual contact of any kind with Jane Doe #3.”
