Sarah Ransome

Sarah Ransome is a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking operation who, on January 26, 2017, sued Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen, Lesley Groff, and Natalya Malyshev in the Southern District of New York under the federal sex-trafficking statute, 18 U.S.C. section 1591. She filed as Jane Doe 43 and later litigated under her own name. The case (No. 1:17-cv-00616) was assigned to Judge John G. Koeltl, with Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, and was dismissed with prejudice on a stipulated settlement on December 20, 2018. Kellen and Groff, two of the defendants, had been named as potential co-conspirators and immunized in Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement.¹²

The Suit

Ransome alleged that Epstein, Maxwell, Kellen, and Groff told her that Epstein would use his wealth and influence to secure her admission to the Fashion Institute of Technology in exchange for her giving massages, while they knew she was being recruited for sexual purposes, and that she was abused by Epstein and Maxwell in 2006 and 2007. On August 8, 2018, Koeltl denied five motions to dismiss, for reasons stated on the record at oral argument (ECF No. 140). The Agreed Final Order of Dismissal with Prejudice (ECF No. 189) recites a stipulation "entered into by and among Plaintiff, Sarah Ransome, and Defendants, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen and" Groff, each side bearing its own fees and costs; the next day she voluntarily dismissed her claims against Malyshev, who had never appeared (ECF No. 190). The terms were not disclosed.¹²

Giuffre v. Maxwell

Ransome was deposed in 2017 as a witness in Giuffre v. Maxwell and produced dozens of photographs showing Epstein, Maxwell, herself, and other young women on Epstein's island, Little St. James, some of them taken by the modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel and given to her by him. Documents unsealed in January 2024 also included emails she sent to a New York Post reporter in the fall of 2016 making allegations about Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Richard Branson and describing videotapes she said she possessed but could not produce. In an October 2016 message she told the reporter she wanted to "retract everything I have said to you and walk away from this." No evidence supporting those allegations entered the case record, and she told The New Yorker in 2019 that she had invented the claims of videotapes to draw attention to Epstein's conduct. The four men have denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.³

Claim Against the FBI

On July 20, 2023, through Jennifer Freeman of the Marsh Law Firm, Ransome and Maria Farmer presented a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 600 million dollars, on behalf of themselves "as well as all other Epstein victims trafficked in the Epstein sex trafficking conspiracy after August 29, 1996," the date of Farmer's first report of Epstein and Maxwell to law enforcement. The claim alleges that the victims suffered "as a result of negligent failures, acts and omissions" of the Bureau.⁴ Farmer sued the United States on her own claim in May 2025.⁵