Reversal of fortune

the long version

From the dynamic defense lawyer who masterminded Claus von Bulow's successful appeal and subsequent acquittal comes the inside story of the decade's most celebrated society scandal. Alan M. Dershowitz unfolds a legal detective story of remarkable excitement. Von Bulow's trials were courtroom extravaganzas, teeming with sex and drugs, mistresses and maids, socialites and sleaze -- and many unanswered questions. Did von Bulow inject his wife, Sunny, with an overdose of insulin to gain her fortune and marry his mistress? Or was he the victim of a bereaved family member or friend who couldn't believe that Sunny had destroyed herself? Dershowitz first presents the evidence that was used to convict von Bulow, then shows how he and the defense team amassed arguments, testimony and new physical evidence that demolished the prosecution's case. He takes the reader behind the locked gates of Clarendon Court and inside the infamous black bag to make clear for the first time how two juries could come to such different verdicts. - Jacket.