Prince Andrew accuser target of suit questioning her claims of forced sex

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz filed a defamation claim Thursday against a woman who says she was a Jeffrey Epstein "teen sex slave" forced to have sex with powerful men, including Dershowitz and Britain's Prince Andrew.

It's the latest development in a long-running legal struggle between former Epstein lawyer Dershowitz, 81, and Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 35, an American living in Australia, who's claimed since 2011 that convicted sex offender Epstein and his associates groomed her as a sex slave when she was a young Florida teen.

She says they trafficked her to powerful men who were Epstein's friends, with whom she said she was compelled to have sex in planes, hotels, mansions and on private islands.

But Dershowitz's lawsuit raises multiple questions about Giuffre's credibility regarding him and others. She and her legal team have made it clear she's not going to stop accusing Andrew of dark deeds, insisting he "should go to jail" and should submit to questioning by the FBI. But so far she has not gone after him in court.

"Giuffre’s credibility has been completely destroyed," Dershowitz's suit argues. "She has repeatedly and deliberately lied and committed perjury for money."

Dershowitz's lawsuit features multiple examples that call Giuffre's credibility into question, says one of Dershowitz's lawyers, Imran Ansari. "Certainly, there is a strong argument to support the claim that her allegations lack a shred of truth as they pertain to Mr. Dershowitz."

Giuffre's lawyer, Charles Cooper, dismissed Dershowitz' counterclaim as just another attack on Giuffre.

"Recycling the same false claims from his increasingly stale playbook, Alan Dershowitz has once again launched an attack on Virginia Giuffre and her lawyers," he said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Let's call his counterclaim what it is: a failed attempt to make something old and tired look new."

In April this year, Giuffre filed a defamation suit against Dershowitz in federal court in New York, for calling her a liar; that suit is pending.

Now Dershowitz has filed a counterclaim in federal court, accusing her of defaming him. In it, he describes his anguish and fury about the damage he says Giuffre has caused to his reputation, business and health.

He says he has travel records, credit card statements and phone records proving he was never in places when Giuffre claims to have had sex with him. Her "false claims" have led him to suffer severe emotional distress, including "cardiac conditions," the filing says.

Dershowitz is seeking a jury trial and unspecified compensatory and punitive damages if he wins, plus attorney's fees.

All of the men whose names have surfaced in connection with Epstein and Giuffre, including Dershowitz and Andrew, have denied her claims. Nothing she has said about either man has yet been proven in any court, civil or criminal.

Giuffre's allegations have been place in the public record via documents and depositions in her own and others' lawsuits, and through her book proposal.

If an American jury concludes she is mistaken or lying about Dershowitz, then that could alleviate some of the pressure that's burdened Andrew and Buckingham Palace for nearly five years. And if a jury believes her, that could be more bad news for Andrew and the British royals.

Her allegations exploded in headlines in January 2015, when she claimed in court documents that Epstein forced her to have sex with Dershowitz and with Andrew when she was 17. She said she had encounters with Andrew in New York, in the Virgin Islands and in London.

Buckingham Palace issued multiple statements emphatically denying Andrew had any sexual contact or relationship with Giuffre.

Dershowitz immediately went on TV to denounce her, then known as Virginia Roberts, asserting if she's lying about him then she can't be believed about her Andrew claims.

Later that year, a federal judge in Florida called these claims "immaterial" and irrelevant to the case at issue and threw them out.

Meanwhile, Giuffre has done multiple media interviews, including a sit-down with Australia's "60 Minutes," which aired Sunday. She reiterated her allegations against Andrew and said she is sick of his "lame excuses" for denying them. She also publicly called Dershowitz an Epstein "co-conspirator."

British tabloids, who have called Andrew "Randy Andy" for years, have been especially eager to hear details of her accusations against the Duke of York, 59, Queen Elizabeth II's second son and an acknowledged former friend of Epstein.

Giuffre stepped up the pace of her public statements after Epstein was found hanging in his cell in August in a federal detention facility in New York while awaiting trial on new sex-crime charges. His death means there will be no jury trial at which Epstein's many accusers, including Giuffre, hoped to tell their stories.

Instead, they're hiring lawyers and filing civil lawsuits against his estate and his associates. In 2015, Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against Epstein friend Ghislaine Maxwell (for calling her a liar) and settled for an undisclosed sum in 2017.

In his counterclaim, Dershowitz revives his argument that copies of a May 2011 exchange of emails between Giuffre and a reporter for the British tabloid Daily Mail, Sharon Churcher, seem to suggest that Churcher gave Giuffre the idea of accusing Dershowitz in her book proposal pitch.

According to these emails, Churcher told her to include him as one of the accused because he would be a "good name" to drop in a pitch.

"This evidence proves that Giuffre’s claim that she had sex with Dershowitz is a fabrication and she published her claim while knowing it was false," Dershowitz's filing says. "Indeed, Giuffre has lied about these emails by falsely testifying under oath that no such emails between her and Churcher about Dershowitz existed."

Dershowitz maintains Giuffre and her lawyers are engaged in a campaign to "maliciously disparage and attack" him by making defamatory statements herself or speaking through her lawyers and representatives.

Giuffre recently lost her lead lawyer, celebrity trial attorney David Boies (with whom Dershowitz is engaged in a separate legal battle ), and his law firm after a federal judge ruled he could no longer represent her in her defamation suit against Dershowitz due to a conflict.

“I await the opportunity to cross examine my false accuser and the lawyers who pressured her to falsely accuse me. I will prove, by overwhelming evidence...that I never met her and that she made up the entire story for money," Dershowitz said in a statement to USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Prince Andrew accuser target suit questioning claims about forced sex