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BBC sorry for interview on Maxwell trial
Lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein was not disclosed
before BBC interview, sparking criticism
The BBC has apologized for asking Alan Dershowitz for his take on Ghislaine Maxwell’s guilty verdict without disclosing his connection, with critics citing the lawyer’s direct links to the sex-trafficking case.
Dershowitz appeared on the British state broadcaster shortly after Maxwell was found guilty on five of the six charges against her, and it was only hours after this appearance that the network released a statement apologizing for the interview.
“We will look into how this happened,” BBC News said, adding the segment did not meet their “editorial standards” as Dershowitz was “not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst.”
Gee, ya think? Just because Dershowitz was a frequent flyer on Epstein's Lolita Express. I believe he was also involved in arranging Epstein's sweetheart sentence in Florida.
In their listed editorial standards, the BBC says it is committed to "due impartiality" in all of its output.
As critics were quick to point out to the news organization, Dershowitz’s name has publicly been tied to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein through Virginia Giuffre. She has claimed Dershowitz sexually abused her while serving as Epstein’s lawyer.
There was no disclaimer about his connection to the Maxwell trial, but Dershowitz blasted Giuffre – one of Maxwell’s accusers – anyway.
“The most important thing for British viewers is that the government was very careful who it used as witnesses,” he said. “It did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, who accused me, who accused many other people, because the government didn’t believe she was telling the truth.”
Maxwell is a former romantic and business partner of Epstein. She was accused by prosecutors and multiple alleged victims of taking part in Epstein’s abuse of young women.
Social media users expressed shock over Dershowitz’s appearance on the BBC, as well as the network’s claim of ignorance as to how it happened.
Dershowitz has defended his appearance on the BBC, calling it “entirely appropriate” while blasting Giuffre’s accusation as “false.”
And he's a lawyer???!!!
“I made full disclosure of Virginia Giuffre’s false accusation against me before expressing my opinion about the prosecution’s wise decision not to vouch for her credibility by using her as a witness in the Maxwell case,” he said in a public statement.
Fox News also interviewed Dershowitz on Wednesday about Maxwell, where the lawyer also slammed Giuffre, though it provided a disclaimer about Dershowitz’s connection to the case beforehand, unlike the BBC.
Rich, powerful and famous will be ‘sweating tonight,’
Piers Morgan warns
Broadcaster questions whether convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell
will “sing” for leniency
© AFP / US District Court for the Southern District of New York
Controversial British broadcaster Piers Morgan has suggested that Ghislaine Maxwell may testify against her rich and powerful contacts to dodge a stiff jail sentence. But Morgan, commenters pointed out, may too be among them.
“Will vile sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell now sing like a canary to avoid spending the rest of her life in prison?” Morgan tweeted on Wednesday night. “If she does, there could be a lot of rich, powerful & famous people sweating tonight ... and not sweating.”
The latter remark came as an apparent tongue-in-cheek reference to Prince Andrew, who is accused of sexually abusing a child, and once claimed in a bizarre interview that he doesn’t sweat.
Maxwell, who is now awaiting sentencing in New York, was a long-time friend and romantic partner of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, whose death in jail in 2019 was deemed a suicide by authorities. On Wednesday, a jury found the 60-year-old British socialite and alleged “madam” guilty of five sex crimes involving the trafficking of underage girls or conspiring to do so. Some of these women claim they were abused by both Epstein and Maxwell at the former’s luxury properties.
Epstein and Maxwell rubbed shoulders with the elite on both sides of the Atlantic. Bill Clinton, for example, flew aboard Epstein’s private jet – nicknamed the ‘Lolita Express’ – 26 times, and the aforementioned Prince Andrew visited Epstein at his Manhattan mansion.
Yet Morgan himself also schmoozed with Maxwell before. Commenters on Twitter posted photos of the contrarian broadcaster laughing with Maxwell at a party, as well as shots of Morgan socializing with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and celebrity pedophiles Gary Glitter, Rolf Harris, and Max Clifford.
Morgan has previously described these photos as “unedifying,” and joked that he needs “to work on [his] clairvoyant skills.”
Should Maxwell stay quiet, the true extent of her and Epstein’s network may never be known. Following a deal between prosecutors and her legal team earlier this month, Maxwell’s so-called “little black book” of contacts will remain sealed by court order. However, a copy of Epstein’s address book has ended up online before, and contained details for Donald Trump, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, actors Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey, several members of the Kennedy family, Peter Soros (nephew of George Soros), and several dozen “massage” providers, among others.
As it stands, Maxwell may die in prison, with the five charges she was convicted of carrying a combined maximum sentence of up to 65 years. She is expected to appeal her conviction.
How long will it be before Madame Maxwell is suicided?
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Prison guards cleared over Epstein suicide falsification
US prosecutors have dropped charges against two prison guards on duty
the night Jeffrey Epstein died
© REUTERS / Andrew Kelly
Charges against two New York prison guards have been dropped by prosecutors. The pair had admitted to falsifying records about their movements on the night financier Jeffrey Epstein hung himself in his cell.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors signed a ‘nolle prosequi’ dropping charges against two former New York prison warders, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, who were on duty the night Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in August 2019.
The pair had been indicted in November 2019 after it emerged that they had failed to undertake rounds of the facility on the night of August 9 to 10, 2019. Instead, they remained in their office and surfed the internet.
Epstein was found dead in his cell on the morning of August 10. A coroner’s report confirmed he killed himself by hanging. He was awaiting trial for sex crimes.
The warders admitted that they had falsified reports from the night of Epstein’s hanging to make it appear that they had correctly undertaken their duties. William Barr, the US attorney general at the time of the indictment, denounced the “serious” lapses at the high security facility where Epstein had been held since July 2019.
The decision to drop the charges came after Noel and Thomas both completed community service work.
Community service work for what lead to the suicide (or, more probably, the murder) of the highest profile criminal since Lee Harvey Oswald (who was also murdered). This was supposed to be a high security prison that utterly failed it's basic mandate even though anyone with a brain knew Epstein's life was in serious danger.
Noel and Thomas were handled with kid gloves and their superiors were not charged at all. At the very least, it's an admission that complete incompetence is quite acceptable in America's highest security prisons.
On Wednesday, Epstein’s companion, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty by a jury on five of six counts linked to helping the late financier groom and recruit teenage girls, including the most serious charge of trafficking a minor for sex. She is yet to be sentenced.
Bob Dylan’s accuser expands timeframe for when
sexual abuse allegedly occurred
By Priscilla DeGregory
January 3, 2022 | 4:42pm
The woman who accused Bob Dylan of sexually abusing her in New York City on multiple occasions decades ago when she was just 12, has expanded the timeframe for when the abuse allegedly occurred — following prior reports that the songwriter was away on tour during the time of her claims, new court papers show.
The 68-year-old woman — who filed suit anonymously in August under the initials J.C. — claimed that the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer groomed her and plied her with drugs and alcohol before allegedly sexually abusing her as a pre-teen multiple times at his Chelsea Hotel apartment over the course of six weeks in April and May of 1965.
Soon after, reporting emerged that the 80-year-old musician was away on tour for most of April and May that year.
The victim claimed that the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer groomed her and plied her with drugs and alcohol
before allegedly sexually abusing her. Getty Images
Still, the alleged victim’s lawyer Daniel Isaacs at the time maintained that his client’s claims held up and that there was enough time between tour dates for the alleged abuse to have occurred.
Last week, Isaacs amended J.C.’s lawsuit saying the alleged abuse occurred “over a period of several months in the spring of 1965.” This, compared to the prior wording in the initial lawsuit — which said it occurred “over a six-week period between April and May of 1965,” according to papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for Dylan said: “The amended complaint recycles the same fabricated claims as the original complaint filed in August.
“They were as false then as they are now. We will pursue all legal options, including pursuing sanctions against the attorneys behind this shameful, defamatory and opportunistic case.”
J.C. filed her case on the eve of the conclusion of New York Child Victims’ Act’s two-year look-back period — which allowed victims of childhood abuse to bring claims even if their allegations had long-since passed outside the statute of limitations.
Isaacs did not immediately return a request for comment.
Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein 2009 deal made public
in Prince Andrew sexual abuse lawsuit
Pr. Andrew, Virginia Roberts (Giuffre); Ghislaine Maxwell
Virginia Giuffre agreed — in a 2009 civil settlement with Jeffrey Epstein — to restrictions on her ability to sue others, language that might impact whether her lawsuit against Britain's Prince Andrew goes forward.
The agreement between Epstein and Ms Giuffre contains a liability release for "any other person or entity" who could have been a defendant against claims by Ms Giuffre, the filing in federal court in Manhattan shows.
That deal also provided for Ms Giuffre to be paid $US500,000.
The Prince's lawyers say that agreement should bar Ms Giuffre from suing Prince Andrew now, even though he wasn’t a party to the original settlement.
Attorney Andrew Brettler, representing Prince Andrew, told a Manhattan Federal Court judge that the agreement should release the Prince "from any purported liability".
The private, 2009 legal deal resolved Ms Giuffre's allegations that Epstein had hired her as a teenager to be a sexual servant at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Prince Andrew was not named in that lawsuit, but Ms Giuffre had alleged in it that Epstein had flown her around the world for sexual encounters with numerous men "including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and/or professional and personal acquaintances".
There will now be a hearing over Prince Andrew's motion to dismiss the civil lawsuit.
Attorney David Boies, who represents Ms Giuffre, said in a statement on Monday that the language about protecting potential defendants in the settlement between his client and Epstein was "irrelevant" to the Prince's lawsuit, in part because the paragraph did not mention the Prince and he didn't know about it.
"He could not have been a 'potential defendant' in the settled case against Jeffrey Epstein both because he was not subject to jurisdiction in Florida and because the Florida case involved federal claims to which he was not a part," Mr Boies said.
Mr Boies said he wanted the Epstein-Giuffre agreement publicly released "to refute the claims being made about it by Prince Andrew's" public relations campaign.
Ms Giuffre is suing Prince Andrew, accusing him of forcing her to have sex more than two decades ago when she was under 18 at the London home of former Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
She said he also abused her at two of Epstein's homes.
Prince Andrew's lawyers say the royal never sexually abused nor assaulted Ms Giuffre and that he "unequivocally denies Giuffre's false allegations against him".
They also wrote that Ms Giuffre sued Prince Andrew "to achieve another payday at his expense and at the expense of those closest to him. Epstein's abuse of Giuffre does not justify her public campaign against Prince Andrew".
Virginia Giuffre with Cairns Harbour in the background. (ABC News: Brendan Mounter)
Prince Andrew has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing.
Recently, Prince Andrew's lawyers said Ms Giuffre should be disallowed from suing in the US because she has lived most of the past two decades in Australia and could not accurately claim to be a resident of Colorado, where her mother lives.
However, a judge last week dismissed that claim.
It will now be up to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan to determine whether the clause in the 2009 pact blocks Ms Giuffre from suing Prince Andrew.
Next week, a New York court could hear for the first time Prince Andrew's defence against allegations of sexual assault in a civil claim brought against him. So how will he be able to fight the case?
In late 2019, Prince Andrew told BBC Newsnight that he never had sex with Ms Giuffre, saying: "It didn’t happen."
He said he has "no recollection" of ever meeting her.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges.
Prince Andrew gave up many royal duties in November 2019, saying that his association with Epstein had become a "disruption to my family's work".
Ms Giuffre's lawsuit is separate from the criminal trial against Maxwell, that concluded last week.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted of recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.
Ms Giuffre's claims did not form the basis of any of the charges that Maxwell faced and she did not testify for either side during the three-week criminal trial.
Janet Jackson felt ‘guilty by association’ amid Michael Jackson’s
child sex abuse trial
By Andrew Court
January 3, 2022 10:54am Updated
Janet Jackson is speaking out in a new documentary, saying she felt "guilty by association" after she defended her brother Michael in the wake of child sex allegations. The famous siblings are seen together at right in 1993. A&E/ Lifetime
Janet Jackson was left feeling like anything but a “Smooth Criminal” after defending her pop superstar brother, Michael, during his 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Instead she just felt “Bad.”
I feel 'Bad' for leaving those cliches in, but just try and get past it.
The 55-year-old singer makes the candid confession in the two-part documentary, “Janet,” set to premiere on A&E and Lifetime on Jan. 28.
In an extended trailer for the special, released on Sunday, the documentary’s producers are heard asking Janet whether the allegations against Michael “affected her career wise.”
“Yeah… guilty by association,” the five-time Grammy winner bluntly replies, sporting a sad look on her face.
Janet publicly stood by her brother amid the highly publicized court case, where he was eventually acquitted on four counts of molesting a minor.
Michael died four years later in 2009, at the age of 50.
Back in 1993, Michael was also accused of sexually abusing 13-year-old Jordan Chandler at his Neverland Ranch. That case never went to trial, as Chandler’s father, Evan, accepted a $15 million settlement.
Janet again defended her brother against those allegations, saying in a 2016 documentary titled “Unmasked”: “Now if this really went on, do you think a father would accept money? Do you think that would make everything OK? It doesn’t make any sense. If that was my son, I don’t care if he gave me a billion dollars, I want to see you either behind bars or dead for doing that to my son.”
She added: “It’s crazy – the guy was after money – that is all he wanted.”
Michael faced further allegations that he sexually abused young boys in the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland.”
Janet remained tight-lipped in the wake of the documentary, with her nephew saying: “I think there is a fear as well to put more energy to it and more eyeballs to it. “That’s why my aunt [Janet] hasn’t said anything because she doesn’t want to make it any bigger.”
Several months later, she spoke out in defense of Michael saying she believes his legacy “will continue.”
“I love it when I see kids emulating him, when adults still listen to his music,” she told the Sunday Times.
“It just lets you know the impact that my family has had on the world. I hope I’m not sounding arrogant in any way — I’m just stating what is. It’s really all God’s doing, and I’m just thankful for that.”
Mmmmm, I might disagree on that point!
Janet Jackson (left) covers her breast after it was exposed by Justin Timberlake during the
2004 Super Bowl halftime show. REUTERS
Meanwhile, the forthcoming documentary “Janet” also examines the fallout from Janet’s 2004 Super Bowl performance with Justin Timberlake, in which he exposed her breast to the audience.
The trailer features an excerpt from a news report stating that Janet was banned from the Grammy Awards in the wake of the scandal.
“They build you up and then once you get there, they’re so quick to tear you down,” the singer is seen saying in the documentary’s trailer.
Janet, both you and your brother tore yourselves down. Because you are on top of the music scene doesn't give you the right to do as you please. Stars have responsibilities to behave in a reasonable manner and you two never seem to have gotten that.
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