This is an FBI investigation document from the Epstein Files collection (FBI VOL00009). Text has been machine-extracted from the original PDF file. Search more documents →
FBI VOL00009
EFTA00615583
221 pages
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602 1 BY MR. EDWARDS: 2 Q. Isn't the comment, that's attributed to 3 you, doesn't it specifically say he, talking about 4 Alan Dershowitz, said that the girl who accused 5 Epstein of forcible sex had a long record of lying, 6 theft and blaming others for her crimes? That's -- 7 A. I categorically deny having said that in a 8 context of a statement about forcible sex. What the 9 Mail probably did is they juxtaposed their view 10 based on these articles that it was forcible sex and 11 assumed somehow that what I was saying related to 12 her. That's not what I said. That I remember quite 13 unequivocally. 14 Q. is particularly one of the victims -- 15 A. is not mentioned in this article. 16 Q. No, no, is one of the victims whose 17 MySpace page you used to give a presentation to the 18 State Attorney's Office about her credibility, isn't 19 it? 20 MR. SCOTT: Let me object. Argumentative. 21 We've been through this five times. 22 MR. INDYKE: Objection, same instruction. 23 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: How much further 24 do you have on this line of questions because I 25 will be -- www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615723
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603 1 MR. EDWARDS: I just want to get an 2 answer, that's it. I want to get answers. 3 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: But the point is 4 well made that the way this article is 5 constructed, it's meant to -- really the only 6 thing that's quoted here based upon this 7 article is "had a long record of lying, theft 8 and blaming others for her crimes." 9 The rest of it is not. And so you don't 10 know the source. Based upon what you've 11 already elicited from the witness, he doesn't 12 remember even talking to the Mail. And so I 13 don't want impact your line of questioning. 14 I've let you go on this. But how much further 15 do you have? 16 MR. EDWARDS: Okay, but I think I need to 17 put this in context, then, so that we kind of 18 understand what the point of this is. 19 This is a defamation action where we've 20 been accused of not performing any 21 investigation. So part of what we had to do is 22 what has she told us and what can we prove, and 23 what has he said in light of the evidence. 24 When we're weighing credibility, this is 25 one of the public statements that we have to www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615724
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604 1 weigh against the evidence. 2 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: And I've read 3 the pleadings, I've read the various arguments, 4 I've read the summary judgment that was filed, 5 and so I agree, that's why I've kind of let 6 this continue. But how much further? Because 7 I'm not so sure how much more information you 8 can get from him that you haven't gotten 9 already. 10 BY MR. EDWARDS: 11 Q. Are the three statements that are 12 attributed to you in the Daily Mail true or false? 13 MR. SCOTT: Asked and answered three 14 times. 15 MR. INDYKE: Same objection, same 16 instruction. 17 A. I have no knowledge, as I said today, as 18 to whether or not Jeffrey Epstein passed a lie 19 detector test. If I said it, and I don't recall 20 saying it, I assume it's true. I can check that. 21 So I assume statement one is true. Statement two, 22 "'The financier had paid for massages, but did not 23 engage in sex or erotic massages with any minors,' 24 the lawyer insisted," I have no recollection of 25 saying that. www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615725
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605 1 BY MR. EDWARDS: 2 Q. Can we start over and go back to the first 3 statement and finish that whole statement, and then 4 you tell me whether it's true or false? 5 A. Right. 6 Q. So the first statement is told the Mail -- 7 MR. INDYKE: If you are speaking about the 8 truth or falsity about these statements in any 9 manner to which I have I inserted my 10 objections, I would ask you not to answer the 11 question. 12 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: So in the 13 context of privilege that Mr. Epstein is 14 asserting, can you answer the question any 15 further than you have already? 16 THE WITNESS: Yes. I can. 17 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Go ahead. 18 A. Our position was that he was innocent of 19 the allegations against him. They did not include 20 any allegations relating to forcible sex, they did 21 not include any of the things that you just read. 22 And our position was, and we stated it to 23 the State Attorney, that he was innocent of those 24 allegations, innocent of those statements. 25 I don't want to ever be held to statements www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615726
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606 1 that are not quoted, because particularly the Daily 2 Mail and other newspapers take tremendous liberties 3 with what you say. And therefore -- 4 BY MR. EDWARDS: 5 Q. I'm asking are they true or false? 6 A. Say it again. 7 Q. Are the statements true or false? 8 A. Statement one is passed the lie detector 9 test. 10 MR. INDYKE: Objection again. 11 A. I don't know the answer to that, but I 12 assume if I said it, it was true at the time. 13 Statement two, he was innocent of all the 14 allegations, that was the position that we took as 15 to the two women who had allegation against them. 16 the State Attorney obviously did not credit 17 .'s testimony because he never -- it would be 18 irresponsible for a State Attorney not to bring rape 19 charges against somebody who had done what you 20 allege from that police report had been done. 21 Obviously the State Attorney came to the conclusion 22 that there were real questions about her 23 credibility. 24 BY MR. EDWARDS: 25 Q. Is it true or false? www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615727
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607 1 A. The statements are true. 2 Q. All of them are true? 3 A. All of these statements, to the extent 4 that I made them, are true. 5 MR. INDYKE: Objection. 6 A. To the extent that I made these 7 statements, they are true, yes. And you should have 8 been on your guard when you saw that there were no 9 quotes, and you should have checked to see that the 10 one statement that was quoted probably appeared in a 11 legal document. And you should have checked with 12 Churchill to see if I ever spoke with her, because I 13 have absolutely no recollection of speaking with her 14 and I'm fairly confident I did not. 15 MR. EDWARDS: I move to strike the 16 unresponsive aspects of that answer beyond 17 whether they were true or false, which I 18 believe the witness has said the statements are 19 true. 20 A. That's not -- 21 MR. INDYKE: To the extent that the 22 witness was making that statement from 23 privileged information, I move to strike the 24 remainder of it. 25 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: To the extent www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615728
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608 1 that -- your motion on the privilege piece is 2 granted to the extent that that's what it's 3 based upon. 4 However, I would say to you that the 5 balance of the statement is in response to your 6 continued questions on it, so I'm going to 7 leave it be. You can be put in context in 8 argument with the Court. 9 MR. INDYKE: Okay. Thank you. 10 BY MR. EDWARDS: 11 Q. Did you write a letter or communicate to 12 the U.S. Attorney's Office that Mr. Epstein never 13 targeted minors? 14 A. I have no 15 MR. INDYKE: Same objection as to 16 settlement negotiations. 17 BY MR. EDWARDS: 18 Q. Is that a true statement that Mr. Epstein 19 never targeted minors? 20 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Let me ask a 21 question about that. 22 Is there a copy of the letter? 23 MR. EDWARDS: Yes. 24 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Is it in the 25 context of the negotiation between -- under the www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615729
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609 1 context of either Mr. Dershowitz or his team 2 representing Mr. Epstein with the State 3 Attorney's Office? 4 MR. EDWARDS: It is. And I will put on 5 the record something that everyone in this room 6 knows, which is that we have litigated in the 7 context of that case whether or not a privilege 8 extended between the defense attorneys for 9 Mr. Epstein and the government. 10 We had to battle both the government and 11 his defense attorneys on that all the way to 12 the 11th Circuit, and we have an 11th Circuit 13 opinion indicating that there is no such 14 privilege. 15 So to the extent it is being claimed, it 16 was already ruled there is no such privilege by 17 the 11th Circuit. 18 A. But -- 19 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Hang on one 20 second. I'm at a disadvantage because you've 21 lived the case and this is my second day in the 22 case. So what who was party to the 11th 23 Circuit? Darren, were you involved with that, 24 or were you, Tom? 25 MR. SCOTT: No. www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615730
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610 1 MR. INDYKE: No, not directly. 2 MR. EDWARDS: Martin Weinberg and Roy 3 Black represented Jeffrey Epstein there. The 4 government, I believe, was represented by 5 in the argument. And we were the 6 other party. And we prevailed by written 7 opinion. I think that it -- 8 THE WITNESS: I'm personally delighted if 9 there is no negotiation privilege because the 10 negotiation privilege only has been invoked 11 against me -- 12 MR. SCAROLA: There's no question pending. 13 THE WITNESS: Sorry. Sorry. 14 MR. SCAROLA: We move to strike. 15 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: I would agree 16 with. Strike that last portion from the 17 witness. 18 If you can share the 11th Circuit opinion, 19 that would be appreciated. 20 MR. EDWARDS: Okay. 21 THE WITNESS: With us, too. 22 MR. SCOTT: I've never seen it. 23 MR. SIMPSON: I'm aware there is one. 24 MR. EDWARDS: Okay. Thank you, Rick. 25 MR. SCOTT: I've never seen or read the www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615731
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611 1 opinion, that's all I'm telling you. 2 BY MR. EDWARDS: 3 Q. Do you know Gerald Lefcourt? 4 A. I do. 5 Q. One of the cases -- when you were 6 outlining the five pieces of litigation, one of the 7 cases was the Crime Victim Rights Act that you 8 outlined? 9 A. I don't think I included that. That 10 brings it up to seven. Unless you're talking about 11 the case in front of Judge Marra. 12 Q. I'm going to show you what we'll mark as 13 the next consecutive exhibit, and I don't have a 14 clean copy, but it's okay. We can mark mine. 15 MR. SCOTT: Well, while we're doing that, 16 can we get the exhibits actually marked and 17 make sure we know which is which for the 18 record? 19 (Discussion off the record.) 20 (Thereupon, marked as Plaintiff 21 Exhibit 22.) 22 BY MR. EDWARDS: 23 Q. Can we go to page 13? Can we go to the 24 last page? And is that your signature? 25 A. No, it's not. www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615732
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612 1 Q. On the last page. 2 A. It is not. 3 Q. That's not your signature? 4 A. No. 5 Q. Who signed your name to this document? 6 A. I don't know, but I didn't sign it. It's 7 not my signature. It's not even close. 8 Q. Somebody forged your signature to this 9 document? 10 A. No, no, I don't know. It's not my 11 signature. You asked me the question is it my 12 signature. It is not my signature. You can check 13 it against hundreds of signatures. 14 Q. Did you have anything do with the 15 authoring of this letter? 16 A. My recollection -- I'd have to read the 17 letter -- is that I did some of the legal research. 18 My job was primarily to be the legal research 19 person. 20 MR. INDYKE: Objection. 21 BY MR. EDWARDS: 22 Q. I'm really just asking about this letter 23 and the authenticity of it. 24 A. I did not sign this letter. 25 Q. Did you authorize someone to sign your www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615733
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613 1 signature to this letter? 2 A. I have no recollection. But probably. I 3 can't imagine somebody sending a letter with my name 4 on it that wasn't somehow authorized. 5 Q. Is that something that you would do is 6 authorize somebody to sign your name to a letter? 7 A. I'm not responsible for who signed this 8 letter. I did not sign this letter. All I can tell 9 you is I know my signature, and nobody who knows my 10 signature would know this is not my signature. 11 Q. Okay. You do know Gerald Lefcourt? 12 A. Yeah. In fact, my name is even spelled 13 wrong, but it's okay. I know Gerald Lefcourt very 14 well, yeah. 15 Q. Was he authorized to sign your name to the 16 bottom of a letter? 17 A. I'm sure he must have been. I'm sure I 18 saw a draft of the letter at some point and said, 19 that's okay, or maybe he just assumed he can sign my 20 name because I had done the research, legal 21 research, the III you do of counsel, outside counsel 22 letters -- 23 MR. INDYKE: Objection. 24 A. but I don't have any distinct 25 recollection of this. www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615734
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614 1 BY MR. EDWARDS: 2 Q. You agree that the recipient of that 3 letter would believe that that was a letter authored 4 by you, given that it was purported to be your 5 signature at the bottom, wouldn't you agree? 6 A. A letter that I had some input to. No, 7 not necessarily. The first signature is Lefcourt. 8 I'm senior to him, older than him. Normally if I 9 wrote a letter, my name would come first. 10 Probably what should have been -- probably 11 it should have included my name as of counsel. 12 But -- but, again, I don't have any real 13 recollection of this letter. 14 Q. If we go to page 13, second paragraph -- 15 A. I don't see pages. 16 MR. SCOTT: Do you need time to review 17 this letter? 18 A. It's a long, long letter It would take 19 me over an hour to review it, probably take me an 20 hour to review it. There are no pages. Yours may 21 have pages; mine don't have pages. 22 BY MR. EDWARDS: 23 Q. In the top right, it starts "Jeffrey 24 Sloman," if you go down to that -- 25 A. Would you find it for me. www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615735
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615 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Q. Sure. MR. SCOTT: Do you want to review the letter for few a minutes? Professor, do you want to review the letter for a few minutes? THE WITNESS: I see where it is. Let me first hear the question, and then I might want to review it. I think it's basically a legal 8 brief, if I recall correctly. Page 13. 9 BY MR. EDWARDS: 10 Q. Second paragraph. 11 A. I see it. 12 Q. Second sentence, "As we believe we 13 persuaded you at the June 26 meeting..." 14 Were you at the June 26 meeting? 15 A. I don't remember. I've been at several of 16 the meetings, but I can't give you a date. I can go 17 back in my calendars and see if I was at the June 26 18 meeting, 19 Q. 20 wouldn't 21 sentence 22 A. 23 Q. 24 A. 25 Q. but I don't have a current recollection. Given the two signatures at the bottom, a reasonable interpretation of that be "as we" Yes. -- "Alan and Gerald"? Yes. Comma, "Mr. Epstein never targeted www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615736
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616 1 minors." 2 Do you see that? 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. Is that a true statement? 5 A. That was the position -- 6 MR. INDYKE: Objection. Same objection on 7 any privilege, attorney-client, settlement 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 privilege. SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Can I see the document? MR. INDYKE: Object and instruct him not to answer. SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Hang on one second. THE WITNESS: Do you want to give it to me 16 overnight and we do it tomorrow? 17 MR. SCOTT: He needs to read the letter 18 MR. EDWARDS: To know whether that's a 19 truthful statement? 20 MR. SCOTT: He wants to read the letter 21 before he's examined on it. 22 MR. EDWARDS: He can read the statement 23 I'm going to ask him is that a truthful 24 statement. 25 MR. SCOTT: But he needs to read it in the www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615737
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617 1 1 context of the whole letter. That's what 2 you're entitled to do. He's entitled to read 3 the exhibits before he answers that. 4 MR. SCAROLA: We'll move on and we'll deal 5 with it tomorrow. He can read it overnight. 6 MR. SCOTT: You seem to be laughing at 7 things I say or smiling at them, and I 8 apologize if you do that, because I'm just 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 trying to protect my client -- MR. EDWARDS: I understand. MR. SCOTT: -- like you're trying to protect yours. And I wasn't laughing at you when we took Mr. Cassell's deposition. Seriously, I don't understand why you laughed several times. I don't get it. This is serious, and nobody is enjoying this. 17 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Okay. 18 THE WITNESS: One laughs, one cries. 19 MR. EDWARDS: I think we're just waiting, 20 right? 21 MR. SCOTT: So he can make a copy 22 overnight and look at it. 23 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: That's fine. I 24 would suggest for purposes of tomorrow that a 25 copy of the letter be sent to counsel that's on www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615738
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618 1 the phone, too, so at least he can hear 2 argument around that letter rather than have 3 him be at a disadvantage. 4 MR. EDWARDS: It would have to be sent by 5 them. Jeffrey Epstein is not submitted to the 6 jurisdiction of the Court. 7 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: This is going to 8 be -- my guess is that it's going to be subject 9 to a full further inquiry, so let's just -- you 10 know, we'll skip to it. 11 MR. SCOTT: If I can have copies of the 12 exhibits ahead of time so we can look at them, 13 it would be helpful. We're going to be using 14 them to cross examine him. 15 MR. EDWARDS: I'm sorry, Tom. I will do 16 that. I was not prepared for the fact that 17 Mr. Dershowitz's signature's on the bottom of 18 something and he apparently didn't sign them. 19 I was blindsided, too. I thought this was a 20 letter he would be intimately familiar with 21 because I thought he had authored it. I didn't 22 realize somebody had signed his name to the 23 bottom of it. 24 And that's the cause of my laughter, 25 because I've personally never seen that before. www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615739
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619 9 10 BY 11 12 13 14 1 I've never seen that happen. 2 MR. SCOTT: I understand, but when you're 3 going to show -- I apologize, Mr. Pozzuoli, but 4 when you're going to show exhibits and ask 5 questions about them, you should anticipate 6 that the witness and his counsel would want to 7 see them. So you should have a copy of them. 8 I think that's basic good rules of a deposition. MR. EDWARDS: Q. Do you agree that in assessing your credibility on the subject matter of who was involved in the abuse of underage girls, that it would be fair and reasonable to assess the 15 statements that you made during and surrounding that 16 investigation against the available evidence? 17 MR. SCOTT: Objection -- 18 A. If that would be done, every criminal 19 defense lawyer in the country could be charged with 20 rape, with murder, with every other crime that he 21 defends his clients on the basis of. 22 I'm a criminal defense lawyer. I've been 23 teaching criminal defense law, I've been teaching 24 legal ethics in the context of criminal cases for 40 25 years. Lawyers are advocates. They assert www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615740
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620 1 positions given to them by clients. And the idea 2 that a lawyer asserts a position and, as a result of 3 that, is guilty of rape is the worst form of 4 McCarthyism imaginable. 5 Q. So your answer is you don't think it would 6 be fair to put your statements up against the 7 evidence when evaluating your credibility? 8 A. In the context that you've just stated, it 9 would be utterly unfair, in the context that you 10 have just stated, utterly unfair and unprofessional, 11 and you know better than that. If I were to judge 12 you by the same standards -- 13 SPECIAL MASTER POZZUOLI: Okay. 14 BY MR. EDWARDS: 15 Q. Because this case is about an initial 16 allegation of unprofessionalism, I want to 17 investigate that last statement. And let me make 18 sure that I got it correctly. It would be 19 unprofessional of me to assess or any lawyer to 20 assess your credibility by -- 21 MR. SCOTT: Listen to the question. 22 BY MR. EDWARDS: 23 Q. -- statements that you have made 24 surrounding this particular case against the 25 backdrop of the available evidence that would be www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615741
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621 1 unprofessional? 2 A. Not only would it be unprofessional, it 3 would involve you also to accuse Jerry Lefcourt, to 4 accuse Roy Black, to accuse Ken Starr. All of us 5 stood behind our client's defense, and we were 6 successful. We persuaded the United States 7 Attorney's Office, persuaded the State Attorney's 8 Office of our position. 9 And you're saying that our advocacy and 10 persuasion is evidence that I committed a crime of 11 rape. That that is so unprofessional, so goes 12 against what the legal system is all about. And 13 would basically make it impossible for anybody to 14 defend alleged criminals in any criminal context. 15 Yes. 16 Q. Can you find a public statement that was 17 made by Roy Black or any of Epstein's other lawyers 18 that says that Jeffrey Epstein was innocent of all 19 charges or never engaged in an erotic massage or sex 20 with minors? 21 A. Yes, I'm sure that those positions were 22 stated universally by all the lawyers in all the 23 contexts, if they were stated -- I mean those kinds 24 of statements. I'm not saying those statements in 25 specific, because I don't know who made those www.phi sre orting.com EFTA00615742