Dershowitz Still Avising Sex ‘Cult’ Leader – And Once Got A Massage At His Mansion

Jeffrey Epstein Image by wikicommons
Alan Dershowitz still provides legal advice to Jeffrey Epstein, who has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, Axios reported.
“He has called me a couple of times about legal issues, because I’m still technically his lawyer,” Dershowitz told Axios on Saturday. “But I haven’t had any social, or any other kind of contact. … You never stop being a person’s lawyer.”
Dershowitz, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School and frequent cable news talking head, helped Epstein get a sweetheart deal after police began investigating the multimillionaire financier, the Miami Herald reported in a bombshell series. Epstein created what the Herald described as a “large, cult-like network of underage girls.”
Yet, he escaped a lifetime of prison. A friend of Bill Clinton and President Trump, and represented by top lawyers like Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, Epstein reached a plea deal with Alexander Acosta, then U.S. attorney in Miami and now Trump’s secretary of labor: 13 months in the county jail on two prostitution charges.
Dershowitz had been friendly with Epstein prior, according to Axios. He told the news site that he got a “therapeutic massage” — from an of-age “old Russian” woman — at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion.
“What happened was I, um, he lent us, this was well before any of this thing came out, he lent us his house once,” he said. “And I was there, my grandchildren were there, my daughter was there, and we all got massages.”
He continued: “Believe me, if I had known that anything improper had ever taken place in that house, I never would have allowed my children, my grandchildren, my wife, my daughter-in-law, my son, to have spent time there. I can tell you categorically there were no inappropriate pictures, no inappropriate anythings. It was like any other house.”
Virginia Roberts, one of Epstein’s accusers, accused Dershowitz of having sex with her when she was underage, Axios reported. Dershowitz denied this, telling the Miami Herald “the story was 100 percent flatly categorically made-up” so “she could get money.”
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Over 500 rabbis sign letter rejecting Trump’s antisemitism agenda
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.