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1 plaintiff’s parents at odds over suit
► EPSTEIN from 1B
$100, according to the lawsuit. The two attended the same Palm Beach County high school. Jane Doe No. 2 is now 19 and living in Virginia, Herman said.
Both lawsuits contend that Epstein, 55, targeted “economically disadvantaged girls from western Palm Beach County” who were perceived as less likely to complain to authorities, or whose credibility would be questioned if they did.
“Both complaints are full of lies,” said Guy Lewis, former U.S. attorney in Miami and one of Epstein’s many attorneys. Jane Doe No. 2’s lawsuit “is an outrageous, defamatory copycat of the first.”
There has been a twist in the first Jane Doe lawsuit. Her mother in Georgia contends that her former husband — Jane Doe’s father — consulted with neither of them before filing the lawsuit. She is asking a judge to halt the litigation until her daughter turns 18 in May and can make her own decisions.
The mother asked in court filings to be added to the lawsuit, saying she “has suffered and will continue to suffer severe mental anguish and pain” as a result of Epstein’s “reckless conduct.”
Jane Doe “just didn’t want the lawsuit going forward with the father’s involvement,” said Ted Leopold, the mother’s attorney. “She wanted to pursue it on her own. The father essentially did this on his own.”
Jane Doe has been estranged from her father since Thanksgiving, Leopold said. “That’s why it’s even stranger what he did,” he said.
The girl’s mother is asking a judge in their divorce case to find the father in contempt of court for violating their divorce decree by not conferring with her on a matter involving their daughter.
“The father has sole custody and has the right to make decisions on his daughter’s rights,” Herman said.
Epstein is a wealthy New York money manager who has counted Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Britain’s Prince Andrew among his friends. He was the target of a lengthy investigation into his activities with girls by the Palm Beach Police Department that resulted in his indictment in July 2006 on one count of felony solicitation of prostitution. That case is pending.
Epstein has been sued in New York by a woman who says he had sex with her when she was 16. Herman said he has received calls from others making the same assertions in that state.
Herman convened a news conference Wednesday on the middle bridge connecting West Palm Beach and Palm Beach.
“This is the bridge ... these girls were recruited to come over and give a massage,” he said. “When they crossed this bridge, they had no idea what was in store for them. This is a bridge of tears.”
Herman has described both Jane Does as typical teenage girls Epstein robbed of their innocence.
But Harvard University law Professor Alan Dershowitz, another Epstein attorney, provided the state attorney’s office with information gleaned from the myspace.com Web site two years ago showing that some of Epstein’s alleged victims boasted of their alcohol and marijuana use.
Herman said the girls’ backgrounds aren’t relevant to Epstein’s purported behavior. “They don’t have the mental capacity to consent to something like this with a grown man,” he said.
larry_keller@pbpost.com
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