In 2019, Preska disqualified the law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP from representing Virginia Giuffre in her lawsuit against professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, but denied Dershowitz's motion to dismiss the suit, in which Giuffre alleged that Dershowitz falsely claimed that she fabricated her sexual-abuse accusations against Jeffrey Epstein, and thus defamed her. In 2020, Preska denied a motion by British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate charged with recruiting girls abused by Epstein, to block the public release of her 2016 deposition testimony in a civil case. Preska stayed her ruling pending Maxwell's appeal to the Second Circuit.