Alan Dershowitz, the attorney who represented both Donald Trump and his friend, sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, says he was personally vouched for by the lawyer representing one of Epstein's most prominent accusers.
That lawyer says it never happened.
In an interview with The Atlantic's Mark Leibovich, Dershowitz denied any sexual impropriety with any of Epstein's victims, as has been alleged, and insisted he's "not a big massage person" — a central accusation made against the controversial attorney.
Defending his 40-year marriage, he said: "I have never cheated. I have never hugged—I don't hug people. I don't like hugging." He added that even people who dislike him on Martha's Vineyard never believed the allegations "because they all see me with my wife."
To back this up, Dershowitz described an exchange ("he came over to me one day”) with Charles Cooper, the attorney for Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, during a deposition.
"Alan, I've seen you with your wife. I can't believe you would ever have done anything," Dershowitz quoted Cooper as saying.
Reached by phone, Cooper flatly denied it. "This event that he's reporting and this comment that he's attributing to me are both categorically untrue," Cooper said. He recalled seeing Dershowitz with his wife only once and that he made a "fleeting observation."
"I did not say and I would never have said what he's attributed to me," Cooper added. "Give me a break."
According to Leibovitz, “In the pantheon of rogues and sleazeballs that Dershowitz has represented, Epstein stands out. Dershowitz helped orchestrate the late sex offender’s controversial plea deal in 2008; Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to state prostitution crimes in Florida, but he avoided federal trafficking charges and wound up serving just 13 months in jail.”