Epstein Accuser Sues Federal Government For Allegedly Ignoring Sexual Abuse Claims

Forbes

a day ago

One of Jeffrey Epstein's earliest accusers filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, accusing the FBI of refusing to act on her claims since she first reported sexual abuse nearly 30 years ago, as the Trump administration's FBI faces greater scrutiny about the Epstein-related documents it has repeatedly promised to release.
Maria Farmer, who first brought sexual abuse claims against Epstein to the FBI in 1996, sued the federal government in Washington, D.C. federal court on Thursday, alleging the FBI 'chose to do absolutely nothing' after she warned the agency about Epstien's alleged sex crimes.
According to Farmer's lawsuit, she said she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, while she stayed at Epstein's estate as an 'artist-in-residence' in 1996, and she accused them of stealing nude images of her minor sisters which Farmer had kept and used for her paintings.
While reporting her concerns to the FBI, Farmer said the agency hung up on her and failed to follow up or properly investigate, and she accused the agency of violating its Manual for Investigative Operations and Guidelines, which tasks the FBI with investigating violations of federal law.
Farmer also alleged she contacted the FBI in 2023 to request the agency investigate why it had ignored her complaints, to which the FBI allegedly responded they had other 'priorit[ies] right now' and would 'further assess' at a later time.
Farmer said the FBI's alleged negligence 'allowed Epstein to continue to sex traffic and sexually exploit girls and young women for years' and that 'countless young women and girls would have been spared' if her concerns were investigated earlier.
Farmer's lawsuit calls out Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom she notes has claimed the FBI possesses 'thousands' of videos of child pornography from Epstein, stating her claims 'could have been corroborated with minimal investigatory effort.'
Farmer is an artist and painter who met Epstein and Maxwell in the mid-1990s when she was in her mid-20s, who purchased some of her work and later hired her as an art scout for his collection. Farmer said Epstein encouraged her to live in his New Albany, Ohio, home during the summer of 1996 as an 'artist-in-residence,' where Farmer said he and Maxwell sexually assaulted her in late July or early August. She accused Epstein and Maxwell of attempting to silence her by buying her off and warning 'bad things would happen to her' if she spoke up, according to Farmer's lawsuit. In 2019, Farmer filed an affidavit in New York federal court as part of another Epstein-related lawsuit accusing Epstein and Maxwell of sexual assault. Farmer also blamed Victoria's Secret billionaire Les Wexner, a close Epstein associate who owned the property Epstein's home was on.
Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have repeatedly promised for months to release documents relating to Epstein, though they have not provided a timeline, provoking criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. The Justice Department released what it called the 'first phase' of documents in a flashy reveal with right-wing influencers in February, though most of these documents were already leaked or publicly available. In March, Bondi said she had received a 'truckload' of documents from the FBI without offering a timeline for their release. Patel said in an interview Wednesday the FBI is 'diligently' working on releasing Epstein documents, stating it 'takes time to go through years of investigations.' Both Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino said in interviews this week they have video proving Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019, rebuffing a long-held conspiracy theory that he was killed because of his connections to the political and social elite. While campaigning for the presidency in 2024, President Donald Trump—who was named in Epstein's flight logs from the 1990s but has not been linked to his crimes—said in an interview with podcaster Lex Fridmann he would be 'inclined' to release documents related to Epstein if he won the election.
The case mirrors multiple lawsuits that have accused the government of ignoring Epstein accusers' claims. A group of eight Epstein accusers previously sued the federal government in September in D.C. federal court, similarly accusing the FBI of failing to investigate allegations of sexual abuse for decades. The women said they were abused by Epstein and his associates between 2002 and 2017. Twelve Epstein accusers sued the government in New York federal court in February 2024, alleging the FBI 'permitted Jeffrey Epstein to sex traffic and sexually abuse scores of children and young women' by failing to 'investigate the reports, tips, and evidence it had of rampant sexual abuse and sex trafficking by Epstein.'
FBI leaders say jail video shows Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide (NBC News)
Attorney General Bondi Again Says More Epstein Files Are Coming—But Doesn't Give Timeline (Forbes)