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 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.
Dershowitz, a Harvard University professor emeritus, represented
Epstein against sex crime charges, for which he served a 13-month
sentence after pleading guilty in 2008.
The lawyers' client is named in court papers as Jane Doe #3, but has
been identified by Buckingham Palace as Virginia Roberts.
Dershowitz, 76, has denied that he ever had sex with Roberts - and
said Cassell, a University of Utah law professor, and Edwards knew
the charges were false when they filed them. He is currently not a
target of the Roberts lawsuit. But Dershowitz is seeking to
intervene in order to defend himself. Buckingham Palace officials
have also denied the allegations against Prince Andrew.
Dershowitz told Reuters Monday that he would file a defamation
lawsuit based on the lawyers' public statements about the case. He
also plans to file complaints with their respective states'
disciplinary boards asking that they be disbarred.
The boards would then decide whether to open an investigation and
whether to bring charges.
Edwards and Cassell said in a joint statement that they had
carefully investigated all of the allegations in their pleadings
before presenting them.
They also said they had tried to depose Dershowitz and that he had
refused, which Dershowitz called a "total lie." He said he received
only one deposition request from the two lawyers five years ago,
asking about his relationship with Epstein - and that it said
nothing about any of the new allegations.
Several law professors specializing in legal ethics said that even
if Dershowitz could prove the allegations were false, that was
unlikely to get the two attorneys disbarred.
The heart of the issue: attorneys are advocates for their clients,
not arbiters of fact, they said, and they are generally entitled to
believe their clients.
"The statement by the victim that it happened, without a strong
reason to question it, would be sufficient," said Amy Mashburn, a
professor at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law.
"Being false alone is not enough," said Stephen Gillers, a professor
at NYU School of Law. "What a disciplinary committee would have to
show is that they either knew the allegations were false, or they
were reckless in making the charge."
Gillers said there was no firm standard for what it meant to be
reckless. While attorneys have an obligation to investigate
allegations before making them, such an investigation need not be as
thorough as the fact-finding that later happens in court, he said.
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Cassell and Edwards would be more likely to face punishment if a
disciplinary board concluded that they knowingly lied. Mashburn said
that would be a very serious fraud that would be a breach of several
ethical rules. Even then, she said, they might only face
suspension.
One obstacle for Dershowitz, according to Mashburn, is that lawyers
are often disbarred for multiple offenses.
Cassell, who served as a deputy attorney general under President
Ronald Reagan, has no record of public discipline since he was
admitted to the bar in 1992, according to a spokeswoman for the Utah
state bar. Edwards, who was admitted to the Florida bar in 2002,
also has no public disciplinary history in the last 10 years. That's
as far back as the Florida state bar keeps such records.
In 2008, Edwards filed a petition in the Florida court on behalf of
women who say they were sexually abused by Epstein. The women say
federal prosecutors violated their rights when they entered into a
plea agreement with Epstein that allowed him to serve jail time on
state charges, but avoid federal prosecution.
Edwards asked Cassell to join him early in the litigation.
Cassell, who left his post as federal judge in 2007, describes
himself as an advocate for crime victims. He has championed the
death penalty - and unsuccessfully pushed to overturn the 1966
Supreme Court decision requiring police to read detainees their
rights.
The case is Doe v. United States, U.S. District Court, Southern
District of Florida, No. 9:08-cv-80736.
(Reporting By Brendan Pierson; Editing by Ted Botha and Hank Gilman)
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