A Dershowitz-Epstein Timeline

Within a year of meeting Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz wanted to legalize sex with children.

Chutzpah.

That's what Alan Dershowitz was known for in the summer of 1996 when he first met Jeffrey Epstein.

From 1964 to 2013, Dershowitz taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed to the prestigious position of Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993.

By 1996, Dershowitz was famous for high-profile courtroom successes. In the 1980s, he got the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of his wife Sunny overturned. In 1995, he was part of the legal "Dream Team" that secured the acquittal of O.J. Simpson on murder charges.

Chutzpah was the title of Dershowitz's 1991 New York Times #1 bestseller, written, said his publisher, "by a brilliant legal mind, on what it means to be a Jew in America today."

Within a year of meeting Epstein, however, Dershowitz was using his "brilliant legal mind" to argue that grown men should be allowed to have sex with children.

And things went downhill from there.

Chutzpah X Depravity: A Timeline

• Summer, 1996 — Dershowitz meets Epstein via Lynn Forester (later Lady Rothschild). They begin socializing, including visits to Epstein's NY mansion, which was previously owned by Leslie Wexner, the founder and chairman of L Brands, the retail consortium that includes Victoria’s Secret, and where "there were often young girls around." (Source: The New Yorker.)
• May, 1997 — In an L.A. Times op-ed, Dershowitz argues "against statutory-rape laws, writing, 'There must be criminal sanctions against sex with very young children, but it is doubtful whether such sanctions should apply to teenagers above the age of puberty, since voluntary sex is so common in their age group.' He suggested that fifteen was a reasonable age of consent, no matter how old the partner was." (Source: The New Yorker.)
• 1998-2005 — Dershowitz flies on Epstein's jet multiple times, including to Little St. James ("Epstein Island") for what he described as a innocent family trip. ("No young people on the island, no Lolita Express or anything.") Epstein also "lent" Dershowitz his Florida home for a family vacation which included his grandchildren. (Source: The Independent.)
• 1998‑2006 — Prior to his 2006 arrest in Florida, Epstein donates $8,443,000 "to support Harvard faculty and programs" (most notably a $6.5 million gift in 2003). These gifts add to Epstein's philanthropic bona fides and cement his friendship and academic bond with Dershowitz. (Source: Harvard.)
• 2003 — Dershowitz allegedly joins Trump and other close friends of Jeffrey Epstein in contributing to a 50th birthday book put together for Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell. Dershowitz contributes a spoof “Vanity Unfair” cover featuring mock headlines such as "Who was Jack the Ripper? Was it Jeffrey Epstein?" (Source: The Wall Street Journal.)
• 2005‑06 — Harvard appoints Epstein a Visiting Fellow on the recommendation of Dr. Stephen Kosslyn, who had previously received $200,000 from Epstein to support his work. Harvard later admits that "Epstein lacked the academic qualifications Visiting Fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue." (Source: Harvard.)
• 2005 — Dershowitz joins Epstein's defense team while his friend is "under investigation for sexual relations with underage girls." (Source: NY Post.)
• 2006 — Florida police arrest Epstein for soliciting minors. (Source: The Palm Beach Post.)
• 2006-2008 — Dershowitz, still Harvard's Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, stays silent as Epstein's financial support for Harvard continues, despite his full knowledge (as Epstein's lawyer) of the crimes Epstein is being charged with. Between his arrest and his conviction, Epstein donates an additional $736,000 to Harvard. (Source: Harvard.)
• December 2007 — New York magazine reports that Dershowitz tried to discredit Epstein accusers by hiring private investigators to scour their MySpace pages to dig up posts casting them in a negative light. One 14-year-old's family complained to police they were being harassed by Dershowitz's investigators. "The police said that one girl had called another to say, 'Those who help [Epstein] will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with.'" (Source: New York.)
• 2006‑08 — Dershowitz helps craft a secret non‑prosecution agreement (NPA) giving immunity to Epstein and “potential co‑conspirators.” The agreement, which potentially protected Dershowitz himself, was later declared illegal. (Source: The Palm Beach Post.)
• June 2008 — Epstein pleads guilty to a state charge; serves 13 months with work release. (Source: New York Post.)
• 20 March 2011 — In a letter, Florida prosecutor Alexander Acosta defends his controversial Epstein plea deal while alleging that Epstein's attorneys, including Dershowitz, repeatedly failed "to negotiate in good faith" even as they waged a ferocious "year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors," including probes into the lives of individual prosecutors looking for "personal peccadilloes" that would disqualify them from the case. (Source: The Daily Beast.)
• December 2014 — Virginia Giuffre files an affidavit alleging Epstein trafficked her to Dershowitz as well as Prince Andrew. (Source: Miami Herald.)
• 2015 – April 2016 — Giuffre and Dershowitz trade defamation suits; both settle confidentially. (Source: Miami Herald.)
• February 2019 — Judge rules prosecutors violated victims’ rights by secretly negotiating the 2008 NPA. (Source: New York Times.)
• April– November 2019 — Giuffre launches a new defamation suit against Dershowitz, Dershowitz countersues. (Source: CNN.)
• 6 July 2019 — Epstein is arrested again on federal sex trafficking charges in New York; Dershowitz tells NPR he no longer has a relationship with Epstein, hasn't seen him in years or spoken to him in months. (Source: NPR.)
• 12 July 2019 — Dershowitz claims that, beyond his legal work, "My relationship with (Epstein) was academic and he was a very smart guy." He says Epstein read his book drafts "and he critiqued them, and he made marginal notes and he was very good at it." (Source: Times of Israel.)
• 29 July 2019 — The New Yorker reports that Dershowitz has corrected his previous claim "that he never had a massage at Epstein’s home." In his updated version of events, he admits that he did have a massage at Epstein's home but that it was given by a "fifty-year-old Russian woman named Olga" and "I kept my underwear on." (Source: The New Yorker.)
• 10 August 2019 — After what Bill Barr later calls a "perfect storm of screw-ups," Epstein is somehow found dead in a facility that hadn't seen a suicide in 20 years. (Source New York Post).
• May 2020 — Giuffre reiterates her claims in Netflix’s Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich; Dershowitz denies them. (Source: Netflix.)
• November 2022 — A non‑monetary settlement: Giuffre says she "may have made a mistake" naming Dershowitz; Dershowitz also retracts extortion claims he had filed against David Boies. (Source: CNN)
• January 2024 — After a set of court documents that were part of a suit against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015 are unsealed, and prominent figures are named, Dershowitz remarks, "Of course I’m on that list; I was his lawyer. I flew on his plane." (Source: TIME.)
• February 2025: Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Fox News the Epstein Files are sitting on her desk and implies that Trump is 100% behind her review of the files and their imminent release. "That's been a directive by President Trump," she says. (Source: Fox News.)
• March 2025 — Dershowitz tells Sean Spicer: "I know for a fact documents are being suppressed and they're being suppressed to protect individuals I know the names of the individuals I know why they're being suppressed I know who's suppressing them, but I'm bound by confidentiality." (Source: The Sean Spicer Show.)
• April 2025 — Virginia Giuffre dies by suicide in Australia. (Source: BBC.)
• May 2025: Donald Trump is informed by Pam Bondi that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein Files. (Source: The Wall Street Journal.)
• 27 June 2025 — Dershowitz reiterates his opinion that the age of consent should be lowered and that adult men should be able to have sex with girls as young as 15. (Source: Alan Dershowitz.)
• 7 July 2025 — DOJ memo finds "no incriminating client list" or blackmail evidence, prompting outrage among MAGA voters and across the political spectrum. (Source: Axios.)
• 20 July 2025 — Dershowitz tells Fox News he has seen FBI reports naming "very important people" and calls for more disclosure. (Source: USA Today.)

In summary: Like Trump, Alan Dershowitz had a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein for several years. At a minimum, he witnessed Epstein's lifestyle and how "there were often young girls around" in the NY mansion Epstein had acquired from his friend, Victoria's Secret-owner Leslie Wexner. Dershowitz vacationed at Epstein's home, visited his island, and even admits getting a massage from a woman he referred to as "Olga." As Epstein's criminal defense lawyer he was not only exposed to the sordid details of Epstein's sex trafficking and dozens of allegations of child rape, he also negotiated a plea deal in which Epstein admitted to "soliciting prostitution from a minor."

Also noteworthy: Within months of becoming immersed in Epstein's world, Dershowitz began what would become a multi-decade crusade aimed at lowering the age of consent.

Today, while maintaining his own innocence and bound by attorney-client privilege, Dershowitz says he knows that the Epstein Files contain the names of multiple Epstein clients who have been accused of sex crimes.

Dershowitz knows the secrets Trump and his goons control

If indeed the Epstein Files were created for the purpose of blackmail, they are now in the control of Donald Trump, who is not only a self-confessed serial predator and adjudicated rapist whose own name features prominently in the Epstein Files. He's also the president on whose watch Epstein became "unalived" in highly suspicious circumstances.

Do we really think Trump — who is very publicly abusing the power of his office to extort and blackmail people and institutions on a daily basis — can be trusted for one minute with such a trove of dark secrets and intimidation tools?

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