Alan Dershowitz says release of Epstein documents will prove he ‘did nothing wrong’

Alan Dershowitz has said that he wants every last document and “piece of paper” relating to late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to be publicly released – asserting that it will prove that he “did nothing wrong”.

Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre previously accused the former Donald Trump attorney and Harvard Law School professor of sexual abuse, claiming that she was trafficked by Epstein to Mr Dershowitz for sex.

Following the accusations, contentious legal battles between Mr Dershowitz and Ms Giuffre rumbled on for the next three years.

Then, in November 2022, Ms Giuffre admitted that she may have made a mistake in identifying Mr Dershowitz as one of her abusers. Lawsuits were then dismissed on both sides.

Now, up to 200 Epstein associates are set to be unmasked after a judge ordered the unsealing of court documents in a now-settled lawsuit brought by Ms Giuffre against Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Many of the documents have previously been publicly released – though hundreds of names were redacted in the filings.

The filings are poised to be released any day now, after the judge ruled that they could be unsealed after 1 January.

Speaking on NewsNation on Tuesday, Mr Dershowitz said he wants all documents released in the case – accusing the judge of holding back some filings.

“The reason I wanted everything put out– and I don’t think the judge put everything out, I think she was selective in what she put out and that’s unfair,” he said.

“I want everything out, every document, every piece of paper, half-truths or lies, and I wanted them out for personal reasons because I know that they would prove what I’ve said from day one – that I did nothing wrong.”

Mr Dershowitz pointed out that “the woman who accused me later admitted that she may have misidentified me, confused me with someone else”.

“So I wanted everything out right from the beginning because I have nothing to hide,” he added.

The Harvard professor – who represented Mr Trump in his first impeachment trial and OJ Simpson in his infamous murder trial – went on to defend the Epstein associates whose names will soon be released.

He said that individuals might be “ashamed” about their association with the serial abuser and sex trafficker but that it does not mean they are guilty of wrongdoing.

“You could judge them for having shown bad judgement, but you can’t conclude that any accusations against them are true without hearing the evidence,” he said.

He later added: “There are some people who may be ashamed of the fact that they hung out with Epstein but remember a lot of people hung out with Epstein before he was convicted.

“Presidents of Harvard, deans, Nobel quality scientists, he was very well thought of in the beginning.”

Mr Dershowitz’s name could be one such name on the list, Fox News’ Sean Hannity speculated this week.

But, as Mr Dershowitz stated, an individual being named in the documents does not necessarily mean they are accused of any wrongdoing.

Ms Giuffre filed the defamation lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015, after the woman who would later be convicted as a sex offender accused her of lying about the abuse she suffered at Epstein’s hands.

The suit was settled in 2017 but was placed under a protective seal – with the identities of those named in the filings kept under lock and key.

Following some legal wrangling – after The Miami Herald sued for the documents to be released and Maxwell’s legal team sought to block it – US District Judge Loretta Preska ruled last month that the trove of documents could be released and the names unsealed in full.

While the federal judge ordered the names of several Epstein victims to remain anonymous, she said that there was no legal justification to keep the names of Epstein’s associates redacted as “John and Jane Does”.

This has now paved the way for several famous figures to find themselves tied to the notorious disgraced financier.

While Mr Dershowitz has always denied any wrongdoing, he did know Epstein.

Flight logs have previously revealed that he flew on Epstein’s private jet – nicknamed the “Lolita Express – multiple times between 1998 and 2005.

In 2015, he admitted that he had once received a massage at Epstein’s home.

Since then, he has repeatedly defended the massage, saying that there was nothing untoward about the encounter – telling The Hill TV’s Rising show that it was carried out by a middle-aged woman named Olga.

Mr Dershowitz also represented Epstein in his first criminal trial in Florida, where he was handed a widely-condemned sweetheart deal.

Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.

Maxwell was convicted of child sex trafficking in 2021 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.