This July 12, 2011 photo shows a plate of pierogies in Krakow, Poland. Food is plentiful and hardy in the Old Town. There are many Polish restaurants where tourists can sample pierogi, bigos, kielbasa and other traditional dishes. (AP Photo/Caryn Rousseau)
PIEROGI PERSECUTION!
Alan Dershowitz’s dust-ups on Martha’s Vineyard are the stuff of legend. What A Day obtained the police report from the crotchety lawyer’s dispute this week with a pierogi vendor… and it has some hilarious new details.
- Alan Dershowitz, 86, is best known for his work on behalf of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. But this week, he picked another legal tangle: Against a vendor of Polish dumplings, known as pierogies, who refused to serve him at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Dershowitz slammed the vendor as “bigoted” on social media, and said he’d been refused “for political reasons.” The dispute got so intense, the police were called… and filed a report, which relays the event in deadpan detail.
- The police report states that the farmer’s market manager walkie-talkied a local cop to say that a customer was being disruptive to one of the vendors. As the officer approached the pierogi stand, “about four” other vendors likewise asserted that the famed attorney was harassing and videotaping the pierogi vendor, the report states. “Both vendors looked stressed and seemed to be trying to ignore and work around this person in order to serve other customers,” the report says.
- The cop persuaded Dershowitz to walk away from the pierogi booth, while the lawyer explained that his rights were being violated because they “won’t sell me a pierogi,” the report says. The result was a hilarious “Veep”-style comedy scene in which Dershowitz, a longtime constitutional law professor at Harvard who’s famous for arguing mega-cases and fighting impeachment battles, got into a drawn-out debate with a cop at a farmer’s market about whether he was legally entitled to buy dumplings — as detailed in a video of their exchange.
- As a result, “Mr. Dershowitz stated he was going to spread the word to others at the market to not buy from the pierogi booth,” the report states. If he did that, the officer warned, he would be asked to leave the premises, and potentially face a “No Trespass Order,” the document continues.
- The cop briefly left Dershowitz, who went to a nearby lemonade stand. When the officer came back, “Mr. Dershowitz was just a few feet from the lemonade booth, and when I approached, I did overhear him attempting to discourage a couple patrons from going to the pierogi booth,” the police report says. Shortly after, the lawyer departed, pierogiless.
The clash between Epstein’s former lawyer and the Martha’s Vineyard farmer’s market appears far from over.
- Dershowitz took his gripes straight to Rumble, the right-wing social media platform. Dershowitz threatened legal action against the farmer’s market “to make sure that they only have booths by people who will sell to everybody.”
- “The clear implication was that he opposed me because I defended Donald Trump and because I was a Zionist,” said Dershowitz, who recalled in his Rumble video that he had worn a shirt to the market the previous week that said, “Proud American Zionist.” He said the Peirogi vendor had “looked at it strangely.” He later described the incident as “pure McCarthyism,” referring to the persecution of those accused of disloyalty (or their lawyers) in the 1950s.
- Good Pierogi, for its part, earned the support of Stephen Colbert on his show last night. “To our friends at Martha’s Vineyard I say… Good Pierogi? No. More like: Great Pierogi,” Colbert said.
- “The drama unfolded like a bad Netflix courtroom movie. Dershowitz compared the incident to racial or sexual discrimination, which is sort of like comparing a stubbed toe to a shark bite,” reads a letter to the editor in the Martha’s Vineyard Times. “He says he’ll be back this Saturday for Round Two. This time with friends. And a camera crew.”
One of Good Pierogi’s people took to Instagram today to say: “For all the support and positive comments. And thank you for negative, hateful comments as well. It gives us a beautiful opportunity to say the truth … My mind is blown. It’s exploding.”
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— The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol, on Donald Trump’s plans to build a $200 million ballroom in the White House.
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