Alan Dershowitz. Photo: Rick Kopstein/ALM

Attorneys for Alan Dershowitz argued Tuesday in a federal court hearing that Boies Schiller & Flexner lawyers representing a Jeffrey Epstein accuser should be disqualified from her defamation case against the retired Harvard law professor.

The disqualification claim rested on communications Dershowitz had with a Boies Schiller partner in that firm's Florida office in 2015.

According to court filings, Boies Schiller partner Carlos Sires sent Dershowitz an unsolicited email to express his support following an appearance on the NBC "Today" program, and, as the two continued to exchange emails, Sires said that he and his firm would be interested in joining Dershowitz' legal team.

It wasn't until after Dershowitz forwarded Sires a memo allegedly outlining his litigation strategy that he learned Boies Schiller was representing Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the plaintiff who is suing him in the defamation case.

Boies Schiller said it had implemented strict screening procedures to avoid conflicts and maintains that the document was never shared with any attorneys on Giuffre's legal team.

U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska of the Southern District of New York, who is presiding over the case, appeared unconvinced by Dershowitz' argument that he reasonably believed at the time that he had established an attorney-client relationship with Boies Schiller.

Preska, in a series of pointed questions, pressed the defense on an email in which Dershowitz reacted to Sires declining the invitation to join his legal team by writing, "darn, I was really hoping you could come on board."

Aidala Bertuna & Kamins attorney Imran Ansari, who argued the disqualification motion, explained that the exchange signaled Dershowitz' "expectation" that Sires would come on as trial counsel, and he raised questions regarding Boies Schiller's assurances that no confidential information had been improperly shared.

"It doesn't smell right," Ansari said.

"To you," Preska replied.

While the bulk of the 95-minute hearing addressed disqualification arguments, Dershowitz' lawyers also made a bid to have the matter dismissed, arguing that the plaintiffs' complaint was filed after the statute of limitations had run, more than four years after any allegedly defamatory statement had been uttered.

Giuffre, who has alleged in court papers that she was recruited as a minor into the deceased financier's underage sex ring and then trafficked to Dershowitz and other powerful men, said in the suit that Dershowitz has falsely painted her as a "serial perjurer" in an attempt to damage her reputation and credibility.

Dershowitz, who represented Epstein when the late financier was the subject of a criminal investigation a decade ago, has adamantly denied all allegations of improper contact with Giuffre and says he had a First Amendment right to defend himself against her allegations.

On Tuesday, Dershowitz attorney Howard Cooper contested assertions from Giuffre's attorneys that statements made last year triggered a new one-year limitations period. That new limitations period, Giuffre's lawyers have argued, means her defamation claims aren't barred.

But Cooper said, Dershowitz' comments reached a global audience through the internet when they were first spoken in 2015. Dershowitz, he argued, had simply reiterated his point—to the same global audience—nearly four years later, and there had been no new publication that would make Giuffre's suit timely in the Southern District of New York.

"Context is everything," Cooper said, citing the "completely internet-based news system" that has come to dominate public discourse and debate.

Giuffre's attorney, Boies Schiller Flexner partner Sigrid McCawley, countered that the law of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was much more limited. The language of Dershowitz' 2018 statements, she said, had differed from his previous ones, and the professor had no right to continue his attacks into "eternity."

"The law of the Second Circuit is each instance [of communication] to a new audience is a new publication," she said.

Dershowitz, who attended the hearing alongside his five lawyers, has claimed the defamation suit was nothing more than a campaign by Giuffre and her attorneys to extort "powerful, wealthy people" for money.

At times, he could be seen angrily poking the defense table and passing notes to his attorneys, and in a couple instances appeared to argue with Ansari when he stood up to talk.

Attorneys on Tuesday also said that they had a recording, taken by Dershowitz, that they said contained Boies Schiller chairman David Boies casting doubt on the truth of Giuffre's claims.

The conversation, they said, occurred outside of litigation or settlement talks and would bolster their truth defense.

Cooper said he planned to call Boies and McCawley to testify on the extortion issue at trial and resisted calls from Giuffre's team to knock out the suit.

"What they are effectively asking you to do today," he told Preska, "is to try this case and decide the truth defense has no merit."

Read More:

Dershowitz Seeks Disqualification of Boies Schiller Attorneys, Dismissal of Epstein Accuser's Defamation Suit

Defamation Lawsuit Pits Alan Dershowitz Against Epstein Sex Trafficking Accuser

Legal Educators Loomed Large in Jeffrey Epstein's Plea Deal