Virginia Guiffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse victims, settled a defamation lawsuit with famed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, McClatchy Newspapers reports. Unlike previous cases with abuser Epstein and his friend Prince Andrew, Guiffre did not leave the settlement with Dershowitz, A former Epstein attorney, with money. Giuffre said she may have misidentified Dershowitz when she said that he had sexually abused her, a vindication for Dershowitz. “I have long believed that I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz,” Giuffre said. “However, I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment, and Mr. Dershowitz has from the beginning consistently denied these allegations. I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”
Dershowitz counter-sued Giuffre after she first sued him for defamation in April 2019. “I’m very gratified that she admitted what I’ve known all along, that she misidentified me,” Dershowitz said, adding that he wished Giuffre well. Dershowitz had previously accused Giuffre of lying when she claimed he had abused her, but said that he had, “nevertheless come to believe that at the time she accused me she believed what she said.” In the initial case between the pair, Giuffre’s first lawyer, David Boies, was removed after Dershowitz accused Boies of trying to extort him and presented a secret recording of Boies in which Dershowitz claimed Boies told Giuffre she was wrong to have accused him. Dershowitz now believes his prior claims against Boies were mistaken.