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Alan Dershowitz Blasts DA's Handling of Sister-in-Law's Death, Report Says

By DNAinfo Staff on July 8, 2011 5:46pm

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Famed attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz has accused the Manhattan DA's office of "stonewalling and foot-dragging" in the investigation into his sister-in-law's death, the Daily News reported.

Marilyn Dershowitz, 68, was riding her bike with her husband on West 29th Street last week when she was struck and killed by a US Postal Service truck. Alan Dershowitz said his family has been trying to get the DA's office to show them surveillance footage from the scene, to no avail, the News reported.

"They have been stonewalling and foot-dragging and finding every excuse in the book," he told the Daily News. "You'd think that is something they could so easily do to help us get some closure."

Driver Ian Clement has not been charged, but authorities are still investigating. He reportedly said he never saw Dershowitz in his line of view.

The Manhattan DAs declined to comment on the accusations.

Marilyn Dershowitz, a former Manhattan Supreme Court referee, was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital a short time after the July 2 accident. She had been wearing a helmet at the time of the crash and medics had to cut it off of her, her relatives said at the time.

Dershowitz reportedly described his brother's wife as "a wonderful, wonderful woman," and told the News, "Everyone in the family is very upset, frustrated, depressed and angry."

The public excoriation comes on the heels of a difficult several weeks for DA Cy Vance's office, as the office has come under fire from critics of its handling of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, which has collapsed amid concerns about the accuser's credability.

The office has also had to fend off criticism of its handling of two high profile cases that ended in aquittals, including the case against two NYPD officers accused of raping a woman in the East Village and the trial of three contractors and a construction company charged with causing the death of two firefighters in the former Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero.