Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says he didn't know about the extent of the allegations against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein when he defended him against federal sex trafficking charges in 2008, but he would be willing to represent him again and try to get him an even better deal.
He also denied, in an interview airing Wednesday on CBS News, that he'd ever seen Epstein with underage girls.
"No. Oh, no," he told CBS News' Mola Lenghi. "If I had ever seen Jeffrey Epstein in any inappropriate situation with an underage girl, I would've terminated my relationship and turned him in."
At the same time, as a criminal lawyer, "being shocked by an allegation doesn't mean I won't defend somebody," Dershowitz said of Epstein, who was indicted this week on sex trafficking charges.
Meanwhile, the plea bargain Dershowitz helped broker in 2008 for Epstein has come under fire, including calls for then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta — now the U.S. Secretary of Labor — to resign. Epstein was sentenced to just 13 months in jail and ordered to register as a sex offender, a penalty many saw as being too light.
However, the plea bargain "was not a bad deal" for the prosecution in the case, Dershowitz said.
"They got him to be a registered sex offender, to pay vast amounts of money to all the women, and to get him to plead and go to jail, and expose him for the world to see as a sex offender," said Dershowitz. "I think the feds thought it was the best they could do."
Dershowitz also denied claims from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claims she was forced to have sex with him and other prominent Epstein associates.
"The same woman that accused me claimed to have had dinner with Bill Clinton and two underage girls on Jeffrey Epstein's island, claimed to have met Al Gore and Tipper Gore," said Dershowitz. "Secret Service records show that all of that is fantasy and made up. This is a woman with a long, long record of lying for money."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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