Highly regarded celebrities get automatic immunity from serious allegations. Consider Alan Dershowitz. He is accused of criminal sexual acts with an underage girl. Dershowitz is aggressively countering the charges. The outcome remains to be determined.

Scott Greenfield writes:

Up to now, the only sort of whore accusation ever leveled at [the] former Harvard lawprof was always paired with the word “media,” and nobody got terribly bent out of shape about it. But the accusations leveled by Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell (yes, that Paul Cassell) take it in a direction that few would have ever imagined. While I’m no big fan of the Dersh, never would I have imagined something like this:

Epstein also sexually trafficked the then-minor Jane Doe, making her available for sex to politically-connected and financially-powerful people. Epstein’s purposes in “lending” Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information.

One such powerful individual that Epstein forced then-minor Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with was former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a close friend of Epstein’s and well-known criminal defense attorney. Epstein required Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with Dershowitz on numerous occasions while she was a minor, not only in Florida but also on private planes, in New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In addition to being a participant in the abuse of Jane Doe #3 and other minors, Deshowitz was an eye-witness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s co-conspirators. Dershowitz would later play a significant role in negotiating the NPA on Epstein’s behalf. Indeed, Dershowitz helped negotiate an agreement that provided immunity from federal prosecution in the Southern District of Florida not only to Epstein, but also to “any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.” NPA at 5. Thus, Dershowitz helped negotiate an agreement with a provision that provided protection for himself against criminal prosecution in Florida for sexually abusing Jane Doe #3. Because this broad immunity would have been controversial if disclosed, Dershowitz (along with other members of Epstein’s defense team) and the Government tried to keep the immunity provision secret from all of Epstein’s victims and the general public, even though such secrecy violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

Dershowitz is mounting a powerful counterattack including a affidavit (being circulated in an unsigned draft)and the threat to move to disbar the attorneys whose court motions contain these allegations.

What interests me is Shmuley Boteach’s absurd and inconsistent arguments in his article, Where are the Jews to Defend Alan Dershowitz?” Boteach goes on an on about how Dershowitz is such a staunch defender of Israel. He writes,

Now come the scurrilous and downright weird accusations that Mr. Dershowitz and Prince Andrew engaged in under-age sex with a woman tied to a once-jailed financier……. There is no way any of us can know if any of this is true…… We are all mindful of women who are victims of sexual crimes and they must, of course, be protected. But the reputations of individuals who have devoted their lives to the greater good deserve consideration as well……

I would like to believe that, at the very least, what Alan Dershowitz deserves is the gratitude of his community. And that means that you stand up for a man when he is down, especially when not a shred of evidence has been brought against him.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Dershowitz claims “They made up this story out of whole cloth. I’m an innocent victim of an extortion conspiracy.” He used that line before to defend Baruch Lebovits. In that effort he was co-chaired by the corrupt office of the Brooklyn district attorney, which arrested Sam Kellner on shoddy evidence that came from the Lebovits camp. In the end the charges against Kellner were dismissed and Lebovits pled guilty to eight felony counts of oral sex with a minor.

I trust Dershowitz will do a good job of defending himself whether or not the charges are true. I see no need for Boteach to corral the rest of us into unquestioning defense of Dershowitz, a man with outsized legal talents, an oversized ego and over-the-top chutzpah.

But, Shmuley, How can you write an article with these utterly contradictory statements?

There is no way any of us can know if any of this is true.

Alan Dershowitz deserves … the gratitude of his community. And that means that you stand up for a man when he is down.

You are saying that we rise to deflect a claim even if we don’t know if it is true. Boteach, with your hunger for celebrity connections you are converting a personal friendship into more than an alibi. You are now maintaining that celebrities who defend Israel must be defended from allegations. It is precisely that sort of flawed thinking that allows guilty celebrities to escape consequences.

Shame on you Shmuley Boteach, though I doubt you are capable of experiencing shame. At least stop pretending “we cannot know if these allegations are true.” If you believe that, you will express your hope that they turn out to be unfounded but you will not demand we rally to his defense. I don’t know what you actually believe, but you are arguing that his service in defending the Israeli government automatically makes him innocent. By the way, Shmuley, is Israel’s former president Moshe Katsav, also innocent of the rape for which he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail?