Exclusive: Renowned US lawyer Alan Dershowitz has hired an Israeli lawyer to fight claims in the Netflix documentary "Filthy Rich" about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, the late, disgraced US financier and sex offender. Sources inform "Globes" that Dershowitz is currently forming an international team of lawyers comprised of two US law firms, a UK law firm and Israeli lawyer Adv. Galia Cohen. Dershowitz is planning to file defamation lawsuits against Netflix in the US, Israel and possibly also the UK.
Adv. Galia Cohen is the founder and owner of Galia Cohen Law Offices, which specializes in civil and commercial litigation and white collar crime. Before setting up the firm she worked alongside veteran Israeli lawyer Adv. Avigdor Klagsbald for 14 years. She has acted in many outstanding cases including representing former Abarbanel Hospital director Dt. Yehuda Baruch and the former Israel National Roads Co. general manager Shay Baras.
US lawyer Dershowitz is considered close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sent him an encouraging professional opinion on Case 4000, involving the alleged corrupt deal between former Bezeq controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch and Netanyahu.
Dershowitz represented Epstein for many years. In 2008, Epstein was convicted of procuring a 17-year old girl for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute, for which he served 13 months in custody but with extensive work release, as part of a plea bargain obtained for him by Dershowitz. Epstein was again arrested in July 2019 when a Pandora's box of sexual offenses by him was opened. He was allegedly trafficking young girls and taking advantage of minors from disadvantaged families. On August 10, 2019, he committed suicide in jail in Manhattan.
Netflix's documentary series on Epstein presented shocking evidence about Epstein's victims and investigated how he was able to exploit his wealth and power to commit the awful crime attributed to him.
The documentary also features Dershowitz and the lawyer insists that it defames him. Among other things, the Netflix series presents claims, which Dershowitz vehemently denies, that he had intimate relations with a woman called Virginia Roberts. Dershowitz is also conducting a civil suit in the US against Roberts, who claims that he had sexual relations with her when she was a minor.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 1, 2020
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