The battle royale between aging legal heavyweights Alan Dershowitz and David Boies is about to go into the next round.
Dershowitz, 81, filed a counterclaim against Boies, 78, late Monday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleging defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Dershowitz’s counterclaim accuses Boies and his firm of, “wag[ing] a war of defamation” against him and of “engaging in a sustained campaign to subvert the judicial process for purposes of disseminating outrageous, knowingly false and defamatory claims accusing Dershowitz of sexual abuse.”
The suit further alleged that “Boies’ conduct has gone beyond that of a lawyer advocating for his client and has crossed over into the sphere of animus and bitterness.”
Boies’s initial lawsuit, filed in Nov. 2019, accused Dershowitz of defamation and an elaborate extortion plot. Boies alleged that Dershowitz, who was associated with and represented convicted sex offender and accused child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, had been “personally accused under oath by two women of sexually abusing them when they were young.”
“In an effort to distract attention from his own misconduct, [Dershowitz] has engaged in a campaign to attack and vilify each of the lawyers who have represented his victims, one of which is [Boies],” Boies alleged.
Boies represented alleged Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Guiffre in a defamation claim against Dershowitz, until a Manhattan federal judge ordered him and his firm removed from the case on grounds that they would be likely witnesses at trial. Giuffre alleged that Dershowitz sexually abused her and Dershowitz called her a “certified, complete, total liar,” saying he could “prove conclusively” that her allegations were false. He said he’s never met Giuffre.
Dershowitz also said publicly that “The villain here is David Boies, who is exploiting a crazy woman in order to get revenge against me.” He accused Boies of attempting to “destroy” his reputation, and said that he would put his “sexual probity up against David Boies’s any day of the week.”
Through counsel, Dershowitz provided the following statement to Law&Crime:
I look forward to putting David Boies on trial for the role he played in his clients making false accusations against me. Boies himself has admitted that the accusations are ‘wrong … simply wrong.’ Through this lawsuit, I intend to expose the legally and ethically questionable pattern of conduct that Boies has employed during his career, of which the false accusations against me are merely one sordid example.
Law&Crime spoke Tuesday with Dershowitz’s attorney Imran H. Ansari, of the law firm Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, PC.
“Alan Dershowitz, while ready to vigorously defend against the campaign of spite, animus and defamation directed at him, is also on the offense, and will aggressively prosecute the counterclaims he has asserted against David Boies, and pursue significant damages for the harm he has incurred,” Ansari said.
Law&Crime attempted to reach Boies by email for comment, but we have not heard back.
You can read the full complaint below:
Dershowitz countersuit by Law&Crime on Scribd
[Image via ABC News screengrab]
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