Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Epstein accuser claims former Israeli PM Ehud Barak sexually assaulted her

Virginia Giuffre, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, has accused former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak of sexual assault, according to court documents revealed Tuesday.

Giuffre’s accusation, details of which had been sealed by a court, became known this week after attorney Alan Dershowitz issued a new filing refuting her claims. Dershowitz sued Giuffre for defamation after she claimed that she had been forced to have sex with him and other high-profile figures, including Barak and Prince Andrew of England.

Dershowitz’s filing was first revealed publicly by reporter Julie Brown of the Miami Herald. Dershowitz’s document states that Giuffre alleges that she was forced to have sex with Barak.

Dershowitz went on to argue that Giuffre “has offered no proof other than her own uncorroborated word, which has been thoroughly discredited by her proven lies.”

Dershowitz’s attorney told the Herald he has access to Giuffre’s sealed depositions.

Dershowitz is suing Giuffre for what he says is a defamation of character after she accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager at the direction of Epstein.

He represented Epstein in the first criminal investigation into the financier’s alleged sex trafficking in 2005, for which the financier pled guilty to one count of procuring an underage prostitute.

Epstein financed a multimillion dollar investment for Barak in 2014, Haaretz reported last year. Epstein’s neighbors told The Daily Beast that Barak would frequently stay at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.

Molly Boigon is an investigative reporter at the Forward. Contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @MollyBoigon.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.