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Extracted Text (OCR)
4.2.12
WC: 191694
“to have a preliminary discussion which might eventuate in saving the children
from the kind of atmosphere that they have tragically been placed in as a result of
Woody Allen’s lawyers.
Q: And not as a result of Miss Farrow’s lawyers.
A: Absolutely not.
Q: In any respect?
A: If Mr. Allen had listened to Miss Farrow’s lawyers, we would not be in
court today and the children’s best interest would have been served.
I was then asked about my efforts to have Woody call me or respond to my letter:
Q: Now lastly, Mr. Dershowitz, did you ever instruct—prior to August 13,
did you ever instruct Miss Farrow to tell Mr. Allen that he should talk to you
because this is a criminal act and I needed a criminal lawyer’...
A: Was I trying to get hired by Woody Allen to be his criminal lawyer?
No...My recollection is that Miss Farrow called me and asked me if I
would speak to Woody Allen. I said I felt uncomfortable calling Woody
Allen.
I have to tell you I wish I had. I wish I had a chance to talk to him
directly. I wish I had had a chance to do something to stop this
steamroller that occurred, and I wanted very much to talk to him. I
thought he was getting terrible advice from his lawyers. I tried to write
him a letter. I don’t know if he ever read the letter.
I think that bad advice has contributed to this and now the lawyers are
trying to figure out a scapegoat for this and they are pointing a finger in the
wrong direction.
Q: You think you are the scapegoat for this?
A: I think the reason you’ve had me on the witness stand for as long as you’ve
had me on the witness stand as a result of 15 or 20 minutes direct
testimony for a meeting that I played a facilitative role shows that there is
an agenda here a little bit different than the agenda that you’re presenting
in the court, yes, I do.
The court would not permit me to expand on the nature of this hidden agenda, but the damage to
Woody’s case had been done. My testimony, in sum, was very supportive of Mia’s efforts to
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