Alan Dershowitz, the famed defense attorney, civil libertarian, pro-Israel advocate and Harvard Law professor — has been vindicated in his fight against charges of sexual misconduct, as the opposing lawyers have recanted the claims.
A woman known as “Jane Doe #3” accused Dershowitz of sexual assault in a filing challenging a plea bargain for Dershowitz’s former client Jeffrey Epstein. Dershowitz himself was not a party to the lawsuit. The filing also named former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew. Dershowitz denied the claims and invited “Jane Doe #3” to sue him directly, offering to waive the statute of limitations. He also said her lawyers should be disbarred.
That led her attorneys, Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, to sue Dershowitz for defamation. He countersued them. The legal drama lasted more than a year, until Edwards and Cassell agreed to withdraw their claims. In a statement Friday, they said: “Edwards and Cassell acknowledge that it was a mistake to have filed sexual misconduct accusations against Dershowitz and the sexual misconduct accusations made in all public filings (including all exhibits) are hereby withdrawn.” They added that they had “filed their client’s allegations in good faith.”
Dershowitz, who joined in the statement with Edwards and Cassell, also reiterated his innocence: “Dershowitz has produced travel and other records for the relevant times which he relies on to establish that he could not have been present when the alleged misconduct occurred. He has also produced other evidence that he relies upon to refute the credibility of the allegations against him.”
He did not dispute “that the underlying alleged misconduct may have occurred with someone else,” and withdrew “accusations that Edwards and Cassell acted unethically.”