South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)

Accuser sues Alan Dershowitz as new sex traffickin­g victim comes forward

- By Stephen Rex Brown

A woman who claims to have been trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein sued the multimilli­onaire’s perv’s attorney Alan Dershowitz Tuesday, claiming the prominent lawyer was lying when he denied having sex with her.

The lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court by Virginia Giuffre was the latest volley in the ongoing Epstein saga and featured a sworn statement by a new accuser of the registered sex offender, Maria Farmer. Giuffre seeks unspecifie­d damages from Dershowitz for defamation. It comes as the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals considers whether to unseal thousands of pages related to the case.

“Dershowitz’s claims that he was never present where Ms. Roberts was trafficked, and never in the presence of young girls, are a lie intended to cover up his culpabilit­y,” the suit reads.

Dershowitz, who has invited t he l awsuit for months, said he was ready to go to court.

“This is the opportunit­y I’ve been looking for,” he told the Daily News.

“This is not a gray area case — I never met this person. She’s made up the story from whole cloth. She’s lied repeatedly and her lies will finally be exposed.”

The News exclusivel­y reported in December that a second Epstein accuser, Sarah Ransome, claimed the perv had “directed” her to have sex with Dershowitz when she was in her 20s. The 80-year-old Dershowitz told The News then that “none of this happened” and slammed Ransome as mentally unstable.

Giuffre’s lawsuit provides a behind-the-scenes look at Dershowitz’s efforts to convince her attorney David Boies to release a statement that she may have been mistaken when she recalled having sex with the noted Harvard Law professor between 2000 and 2002, beginning when she was 16 years old.

“Dershowitz was also a participan­t in sex traffickin­g, including as one of the men to whom Epstein lent out (Giuffre) for sex,” the suit reads. Dershowitz even went so far as to argue that Giufrre was confusing him with former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold.

“(Dershowitz) simply believed Ms. Roberts had made an honest mistake in confusing him with Nathan Myhrvold,” the suit reads, recounting negotiatio­ns in May 2015.

“She was, and is, clear that it was Dershowitz, not Myhrvold, with whom she had sex.”

Myhrvold did not respond to a request for comment.

Farmer, the new Epstein accuser, says in a new sworn affidavit that she saw Dershowitz in the presence of underage women — but that she never saw him having sex.

“On a number of occasions I witnessed Dershowitz at the NY mansion going upstairs at the same time there were young girls under the age of 18 who were present upstairs in the house,” Farmer says.

The Epstein case has received new scrutiny following a Miami Herald investigat­ion that revived questions about the legal slap on the wrist the billionair­e received from then-Southern Florida U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta.

The Department of Justice has opened an inquiry into Acosta’s decision in 2007 to allow Epstein to only serve 13 months in a private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. Investigat­ors uncovered ample evidence Epstein had orchestrat­ed an internatio­nal sex traffickin­g operation in Florida, New York and his private Caribbean island, among other locales.

Acosta now serves as Labor Secretary.

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