A former member of OJ Simpson's defense team is now assisting Harvey Weinstein. Alan Dershowitz—a Harvard Law School professor and frequent guest on cable news—is serving as a consultant to Weinstein's effort to obtain emails from The Weinstein Company that he sent and received before he was fired in October. Weinstein, facing dozens of accusations of sexual assault and harassment, apparently believes the emails will exonerate him, the Hollywood Reporter notes. He has been fighting for months to get the emails, and Dershowitz filed a declaration supporting the effort in Delaware Bankruptcy Court on Thursday.
Weinstein's lawyer has "a constitutional right to these materials while there are ongoing criminal investigations in order to present prosecutors with exculpatory information that could persuade them not to bring charges," Dershowitz said in the filing, per Deadline. He also stated that if Weinstein —who's being investigated by authorities in two countries—is charged with a crime, "he would of course have a constitutional right to all of his emails and other exculpatory materials." (Ashley Judd is suing the disgraced producer for allegedly "torpedoing" her career after she rejected his advances.)