Maria Farmer

Maria Farmer is an American painter who worked for Jeffrey Epstein in 1996 and who, on August 29, 1996, reported Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the New York Police Department and then to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, alleging that they had sexually assaulted her at Epstein's residence in New Albany, Ohio, on or adjacent to the estate of Leslie Wexner, and had stolen nude images she had made of her two minor sisters. It is the earliest known report of Epstein to law enforcement. The FBI did not act on it. Federal agents interviewed her in 2006, during the Florida investigation that ended in Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement. In May 2025 she sued the United States for negligence.¹²

Work for Epstein

In the mid-1990s Farmer had recently completed a Master of Fine Arts at the New York Academy of Art when she met Epstein and sold him one of her paintings. He hired her as an "art scout" for his collection, a job that expanded to receptionist and other duties at his New York residence and at an apartment building on East 66th Street where, according to her complaint, Epstein housed young women. Farmer alleges that over several months in 1996 she saw many young women and girls, including children in school uniforms, entering the house; that Maxwell, on errands in Epstein's car, repeatedly had the driver stop so she could "go get girls"; that Epstein showed her a media room of recording devices and monitors at the New York house; and that Epstein and Maxwell kept a "modeling book" of images of apparently underage girls in his safe, which Maxwell told her was used in connection with Victoria's Secret, a Wexner company.¹

New Albany

In the summer of 1996 Epstein invited Farmer to spend the summer as an "artist-in-residence" at his house in New Albany, Ohio, which her complaint describes as "part of or adjacent to Les Wexner's estate." Farmer alleges that in late July or early August 1996 Epstein and Maxwell sexually assaulted her there, and that they took from her catalogued collection nude images of her two minor sisters, which she used in her artwork, and flew them to New York. She alleges that when she tried to leave, she was "physically threatened by a local Sheriff and other persons connected with Wexner and prevented from leaving the New Albany property" for many days, that Epstein telephoned offering to "make it up to her" and asking what she "wanted," and that she was let go only after contacting her family. On her return she found her apartment, to which Epstein and Maxwell held keys, painted black and emptied of most of its furniture. She alleges that Maxwell threatened to burn her artwork and the building she lived in, and told her she and Epstein could destroy her career. Wexner has said that he severed ties with Epstein around 2007, when "we discovered that he had misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family."¹³

The 1996 Report

NYPD complaint report No. 1996-0067241, dated August 29, 1996, records that Epstein "did call her and stated he was going to burn victim's painting" and that he "has keys to victim's apartment." The precinct told her it could address only the threat and referred her to the FBI. Farmer alleges that she then called at least two FBI offices and reported the assault, her fear that one of her minor sisters had been abused, the stolen photographs, Epstein's recording equipment, and the binder in his safe, and that the FBI hung up on her mid-sentence and did not follow up. That year Epstein had also met her younger sister Annie Farmer, then sixteen, and flown her to his New Mexico ranch, where Annie later testified that Maxwell and Epstein abused her.¹⁴

In 2006, FBI agents working the Palm Beach case arrived unannounced at Farmer's home in North Carolina, acknowledged her 1996 report, and told her they needed her for the Florida investigation, promising they would "get him" this time. FBI field notes of that meeting record her earlier report to the NYPD Sixth Precinct. Farmer repeated her 1996 account. In September 2007 the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida had signed the non-prosecution agreement, which immunized Epstein's "potential co-conspirators."¹⁵

Farmer v. United States

Through the Marsh Law Firm, Farmer wrote to the government on May 2, 2023 urging an investigation of the FBI's handling of her report. On July 20, 2023 she and Sarah Ransome presented a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act to the FBI for 600 million dollars on behalf of themselves and "all other Epstein victims trafficked in the Epstein sex trafficking conspiracy after August 29, 1996," the date of her first report.⁶ An FBI response to her Freedom of Information Act request placed it on a "complex request small processing track" with an "estimated date of completion" of "November, 2027." On May 29, 2025 she sued the United States in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:25-cv-01709-RBW) for negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The complaint alleges that the FBI violated its own Manual of Investigative Operations and Guidelines in 1996 and 2006; that the Southern District of Florida failed to notify the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of a sex-trafficking investigation; that it gave Epstein "a sweetheart 'deal-of-a-lifetime' non-prosecution agreement" although the U.S. Attorneys' Manual authorized such agreements only for cooperating witnesses; and that it "granted blanket immunity to Epstein and all his known and unknown co-conspirators." It further alleges that Epstein was allowed to plead to soliciting one minor rather than several, was given work release twelve hours a day, and served his sentence in the minimum-security Palm Beach County Jail rather than the county's Main Detention Center.¹

On December 23, 2025 the FBI's FD-71 record of her 1996 complaint was released in the first wave of disclosures under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.⁷