Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre dropped her lawsuit against Alan Dershowitz and said she may have mistakenly accused him of sexual abuse
Bebeto Matthews/AP
- Virginia Giuffre's defamation lawsuit against Alan Dershowitz has been voluntarily dismissed.
- Giuffre said in a statement that she may have been mistaken in accusing Dershowitz of sexual abuse.
- Giuffre is one of the sex-trafficking victims of Jeffrey Epstein. She got a settlement from Britain's Prince Andrew as well.
Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre's defamation lawsuit against Alan Dershowitz — who she claimed sexually assaulted her as a teenager — was voluntarily dismissed on Tuesday, according to court documents viewed by Insider.
Giuffre admitted that she may have been mistaken in accusing Dershowitz of abusing her, according to a joint statement obtained by The New York Times.
The Times said it verified the authenticity of the statement with one of Dershowitz's lawyers. A lawyer for Giuffre would not comment on the statement, but confirmed that the case had been settled, The Times reported.
Insider reached out to lawyers for both Giuffre and Dershwotiz for comment on Tuesday but did not immediately receive a response from either party.
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Giuffre is perhaps the most public of Epstein's victims. She has long claimed that she was recruited while working at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump's resort in Florida in 2000, and groomed to be sexually abused by Epstein. Eventually, she says she was trafficked to his friends and associates.
Until Tuesday, one of the other friends she claims she was abused by was Dershwotiz, Epstein's one-time lawyer, who helped secure him a cushy non-prosecution agreement when Epstein first came under scrutiny for preying on minors in the late aughts. Epstein died of an apparent suicide after his second arrest in 2019.
However, according to the statement obtained by The Times, Giuffre is no longer certain her allegations were true. Giuffre expresses in the statement that while she long believed she was trafficked to Dershwotz, she was young at the time and in a stressful and traumatic environment, according to The Times.
For his part, Dershowitz commended Giuffre in the joint statement for her courage in admitting she may have been wrong, The Times reported.
Earlier this year, Giuffre settled another lawsuit against Britain's Prince Andrew, who she also accused of sexually abusing her as a teenager. The Telegraph reported that the prince paid Giuffre $16 million, though the settlement ended without him claiming responsibility for the abuse.