Lawyer Alan Dershowitz has revealed how much money he was paid to negotiate the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart prison deal in 2008.
The disgraced financier paid Dershowitz—who also represented President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial—about $3 million for his help securing the deal, the celebrity attorney told Bloomberg.
The figure was revealed in connection with a trove of Epstein’s personal emails that was obtained by the outlet, which also discovered that Dershowitz’s support for Epstein went beyond legal advocacy.
In 2005 and 2006, state and federal law enforcement officers in Palm Beach, Florida, found that Epstein had sexually abused dozens of girls between ages 14 and 16.
He was indicted on state felony charges for solicitation of prostitution, and was also facing federal charges carrying a potential sentence of life in prison.
Dershowitz, however, managed to help negotiate an unprecedented deal in which U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta of the Southern District of Florida agreed to grant Epstein immunity on the federal charges in exchange for pleading guilty on the state charges.
Under the terms of the agreement, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but he was allowed to leave during the day to go to work and was ultimately released after just 13 months. He also had to register as a sex offender and pay restitution to more than 30 victims identified by the FBI.
But even that wasn’t good enough for Epstein, Dershowitz told Bloomberg.
“Epstein was dissatisfied with the deal I helped arrange,” he said. “He wanted a misdemeanor with no jail time and no sex registration.”
Dershowitz said Epstein basically fired him and refused to pay what he still owed, but, “We ultimately resolved the fee issue.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Dershowitz for comment.
Between 2003 and 2013, Epstein’s legal fees hit more than $54 million, according to a forensic accountant’s report filed in court two years ago, Bloomberg reported.
The report showed that Epstein paid Dershowitz a total of $4 million, but about $1 million of that had to be paid out to other attorneys and researchers, according to Dershowitz.
During a February 2006 meeting with state prosecutors, Dershowitz dismissed the victims as “self-described prostitutes” who “don’t feel harmed” and were just “out for money,” according to shorthand notes from the meeting that was among the emails Bloomberg received.
Legally, girls who are not old enough to consent to sex also cannot consent to sell it, which is why the Department of Justice classifies underage “prostitutes” as victims of sex trafficking.
During the meeting, which included other members of Epstein’s legal defense team, Dershowitz nevertheless told two members of the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office and a detective on the case Epstein was “decimated already” and that he refused to make Epstein into a “public pariah.”
“He hasn’t slept in months,” he said, according to the memo notes. “I want to leave here and tell him we’ve got this resolved.”
Later, in September 2006, Dershowitz worked with Epstein to draft a letter to his friends that was included in the emails Bloomberg obtained.
“I am writing this letter to Jeffrey’s close friends as one of his close friends, not as a lawyer,” he wrote in an early draft. “NO, there was never any underage sex. Absolutely none.”
The letter continued: “I know that you wish him well, and I’m sure that as this too will pass, we can all help him bring this difficult time to a forgiving close. When the full story finally comes out, the world will learn what we already know—that Jeffrey is a good person who does many good things.”
Dershowitz told Bloomberg that he didn’t recall the letter and said they were privileged lawyer-client communications that should not have been made public.
“They show that I was acting as any responsible lawyer should: making the case for my client,” he said.
Epstein was later arrested in New York in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking. Before the presiding judge had a chance to rule on whether the Florida non-prosecution agreement applied to the New York case, Epstein was found dead by apparent suicide in his jail cell.
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