Alan Dershowitz Joins Harvey Weinstein #MeToo Defense Team
Image by getty images
(JTA) — Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz is helping Harvey Weinstein’s legal team, according to court documents.
Weinstein, a Jewish movie mogul who is currently being investigated by law enforcement authorities over allegations of sexual misconduct, is fighting with Dershowitz’s help to obtain emails that Weinstein says would “exonerate” him, according to an article Friday in the Hollywood Reporter, which the magazine says are based on court documents.
On Thursday, Weinstein continued his bid in Delaware Bankruptcy Court to obtain personal and business records kept by The Weinstein Co. – a firm which he helped set up but which dismissed him in October following multiple complaints about his alleged sexual exploitation of women. The company has declared bankruptcy and its assets have been put on sale.
But Harvey Weinstein is seeking to obtain emails from the company before it is sold and possibly dissolved, according to the Report. Dershowitz, who had counseled O. J. Simpson in the 1990s in a criminal murder trial from which the football player was acquitted, said he has agreed to help Weinstein with this issue.
“I have been retained to consult with Benjamin Brafman, Esquire who is representing Harvey Weinstein,” Dershowitz states in a declaration submitted to Delaware Bankruptcy Court. “I have agreed to consult on the specific issue of Mr. Brafman’s access to his client’s personal and business emails.”
Last month, Weinstein filed a motion requesting access to the files because their contents will allow him to “exonerate himself,” he told the court.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
