Posted on 01/06/2015 12:20:20 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Harvard Law professor and popular criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz is the latest high-profile figure accused of engaging in sexual assault some years ago.
“In a filing in Florida federal court last week, former federal judge Paul Cassell and Florida plaintiffs attorney Bradley Edwards said that their client was forced as a minor by financier Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with several people, including Dershowitz and Britain’s Prince Andrew,” Reuters reported.
But quite unlike how comedian Bill Cosby has handled the accusations against him, Dershowitz came out swinging.
In a sworn affidavit filed on Monday, Dershowitz called the charges against him “totally false” and “outrageous.” He has said he will waive his right to the statute of limitations and request that the attorneys representing his alleged victim file a criminal rape charge against him (at the moment, he is facing only a civil complaint). Dershowitz is seeking the disbarment of his accuser’s representatives and, if he is found innocent of this crime, a criminal charge against his accuser for making a false rape claim.
But the plot thickens from here.
According to a report in The Smoking Gun, Epstein, a wealthy financier who pled guilty to a 2008 felony charge involving underage girls, is particularly well-connected. One of his many powerful connections is former President Bill Clinton.
According to court records, Clinton “frequently flew” with Epstein aboard the investor’s private jet from 2002 to 2005, the year news of the police investigation of Epstein was first reported.
…
As part of a civil suit filed against Epstein by several of his victims, lawyers for the women floated the possibility of subpoenaing Clinton since he “might well be a source of relevant information” about Epstein’s activities.While Clinton was never deposed, lawyers obtained Epstein’s computerized phone directory, which included “e-mail addresses for Clinton along with 21 phone numbers for him, including those for his assistant (Doug Band),” according to a court filing.
Somehow, the tangential association of a former United States president with an underage sex slavery ring has failed to pique the interest of the political press. Fancy that.
Who knows whether the accusations against Dershowitz, not to mention a member of the British royal family, are accurate. The lurid details of Epstein’s sexual proclivities and his connections to powerful people certainly leave room for doubt about Dershowitz’s innocence. The coming weeks will be clarifying, and it is prudent at this stage to reserve judgment. Dershowitz’s actions, however, speak to his guiltlessness in this case.
If these accusations are found to be spurious, will the press examine why it seems that we are in the midst of a spate of false accusations of sexual misconduct? From the implosion of the lurid yarn involving a gang rape initiation at the University of Virginia to Lena Dunham’s politically-charged tale of sexual assault, which also now seems a largely fabricated, it appears as though the number of false charges of rape are increasing. A simple review of how these accusations are greeted by the press, with excessive and impulsive credulity, suggests that there is an incentive structure in place for those inclined to level these false charges.
Moreover, those on what Charles C. W. Cooke called the “feminist left” are determined to shun Western principles of jurisprudence and commit to the notion that the accused are guilty until proven innocent.
Amazingly, these presumptions tend to remain intact through thick and thin. In consequence, a person who incorrectly judged the veracity of Rolling Stone’s story can remain on the side of the angels, while a person who was correct to doubt the account is dismissed as a devil who just got lucky. Sure, the zetetics might have been right in a technical, factual, reality-based sense. But that they tried to investigate the matter in the first instance tells us something terrible about their character. And yes, the story may have been completely and utterly wrong. But at least its advocates took a stand for something nice. Did you? Wait, you’re not a rapist, are you?
In 2015, a legitimate claim to victimhood confers the abused with an unassailable moral authority that they could otherwise never achieve with such passé feats such as accomplishment as a result of perseverance and labor. To pretend that the modern media culture does not encourage the construction of victimhood narratives is to reject the empirical conditions around us. Furthermore, as Cooke observes, to merely express deserved skepticism about fantastical accounts of sexual assault is to invite accusations of “victim shaming” or some other modern-day scarlet letter.
In the pursuit of social justice, we have abandoned reverence for legitimate and objective justice. But the last year has been a clarifying one, and perhaps we are at the tipping point. If Dershowitz is innocent, his decision to not only shame his accuser, but to demand that she be criminally charged raises the stakes of the game considerably.
He is doing what would be the best thing to defend oneself if one is innocent in demanding the accuser’s sworn testimony be on record on the courts.
Women don’t lie about rape. Or so I’ve been told.
RE: Women don’t lie about rape. Or so I’ve been told.
False rape charges are as old as Genesis.
See the Story of Joseph.
Chicken sh|t tactic.
Hath the writer never heard the saying "Me thinks thou doth protest too much"?
It’s been reported that Epstein secretly filmed the behavior of his friends, and the police have the films.
with a mug like his, I wonder
Dershowitz is finally feeling what liberalism will eventually do to you, I will not conclude his guilt based on accusation that is what liberals do, but it is satisfying to see liberals caught in their own trap, we may be on the precipice of an epidemic for liberals, not that it would have an adverse effect on their brand, scandal is expected and excepted but Dershowitz has been known to occasionally stray off the reservation, like praising Ted Cruz, this could be a warning or a death sentence.
There is no comparison with Bill Cosby, for one thing Cosby already settled out of court for one drugging rape in 2006, a case that brought forward 13 Jane Does to support his rape methods and two police reports in the past.
Recently the total of accusations against Cosby of drugging/rape, and sexual assault is close to 30, and it is wide and diverse, involving different states, cities, 5 different decades, and accusers who today vary in age from 24 to their mid 70s.
Clinton: "I don't recall..."
“It depends on what the meaning of is, is.”
Good theatre but does he have to worry about this actually being legal? By the way he probably knows the answer to that one.
One thing I’ll say, is it is odd to be looking at the alleged involved and you see a few names you recognize and then you see and think “Dershowitz??”. That much is true, many wouldn’t think he’d be involved in such a thing.
Good theatre but does he have to worry about this actually being legal? By the way he probably knows the answer to that one.
If he really is innocent then he shouldn't mind fighting his case under the lesser proof requirements of a civil case vs. a criminal case.
But then, he knows what happened to OJ...:^)
Good theatre but does he have to worry about this actually being legal? By the way he probably knows the answer to that one.
I'm not a law professor, but something about this doesn't seem right. An individual can't waive a state law, but then again, I never went to Harvard.
Yeah, but OJ wa guilty.
Could be he’s innocent and she’s a liar, or not - I have no way of judging. In the absence of any convincing evidence I will have to give Dershowitz (and Prince Andrew, and the others) the benefit of the doubt. OTOH, I won’t be surprised if their vehement denials turn out to be lies, as we’ve often seen in the past. Deershowitz’s counterattack is consistent with two possibilities: an innocent man strongly defending his innocence, or a guilty man using his position and knowledge of (and connections in) the legal system to try and shut down his accuser. The truth may eventually come out.
I have never seen the media side with the men in these kinds of allegations in all my life.
Cosby messed up royally by denying and accusing the alleged victims of being shakedown artists.
A.D. seems to be doing the same thing - opening himself up to a civil lawsuit where all of the dirty laundry can come out. If it’s his word vs. hers... a jury may well side with the teen girl.
Cosby will attempt to settle his cases prior to trial and pay them hush money as well. No way he will get on a witness stand or let two dozen women testify one after another what they say took place.
A.D. is a big Democrat liberal. Don’t let him fool you. As is Cosby.
More interesting is Bill Clinton.
And the fact all of this is supposedly on film or videotape somewhere....
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