Epstein Data Wiki

Maria Farmer

Properties2
tagsperson, survivor, artist, us-v-maxwell, civil-litigation
aliases

14 min read

ProfessionArtist1
Worked forJeffrey Epstein, New York, mid-1990s, on the account in her civil complaint as reported in 20192
Known forSays she reported Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to police and to the FBI in 199631
Civil claimFarmer v. Indyke, No. 19 Civ. 10474 (S.D.N.Y.), against Epstein’s estate4
CounselBoies Schiller Flexner; Sigrid S. McCawley1

Maria Farmer is an American artist who worked for Jeffrey Epstein in New York in the mid-1990s and who has said publicly, under her own name and in court, that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell held her against her will and assaulted her in 1996 and that she reported them to the New York Sixth Precinct police department and to the FBI that year.5231 She sued Epstein’s estate in November 2019 and gave a written victim impact statement at Maxwell’s sentencing in June 2022.21 The account below is her own, as she gave it to the courts and as filings in the criminal case record it.12 Maxwell disputed at sentencing that she was a victim of the offences on which Maxwell was convicted, and the sentencing judge declined to decide that question while allowing her statement into the record in full.67

Work for Epstein

The New York Law Journal, reporting on the complaint she filed against Epstein’s estate in November 2019, wrote that Epstein had hired her to buy art for him and that her responsibilities soon shifted to “focus on monitoring and keeping records of who entered Epstein’s New York mansion.”2 The same report said her complaint alleged that Maxwell “was regularly bringing school-aged girls” to the house on East 71st Street, that they were always escorted upstairs, and that she was told the girls were interviewing for modeling positions with Victoria’s Secret.2 She was 26 at the time and, the report said, was unaware of Epstein’s conduct then.2 In an affidavit she swore on April 12, 2019, filed four days later as Exhibit 12 to the complaint in another Epstein accuser’s defamation case, she described her job as “manning the front door at his New York mansion and keeping records of people who came to the home,” said she saw “a number of school age girls coming to the house, some of the young girls would be wearing their school uniforms,” and said it “did not seem credible to me that these young girls were interviewing for modeling positions.”5

Her account of 1996

In the victim impact statement her counsel filed at Maxwell’s sentencing, dated June 22, 2022, she wrote:

“My life was on a trajectory to be a well-known and well-respected artist when I was derailed by Ghislaine Maxwell. I was studying with the phenomenal artists Eric Fischl and Chuck Close, while doing art for Director James Brooks when I was held captive and assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on the Wexner estate in 1996.”1

She went on to write that Maxwell began “threatening my life and destroying my livelihood” after her return, that Maxwell threatened her family and friends, and that she stopped painting.1 She wrote that after Maxwell learned she had gone to the FBI her life “no longer belonged” to her, that she had lived “in poverty and obscurity” and in hiding, and that Maxwell “assured me that I could be killed walking down my favorite path in NYC.”1 She names the property as the estate of Leslie Wexner.1

Her sworn affidavit, filed April 16, 2019, sets out the same episode in more detail, and what follows is her allegation, not a finding of fact. She states that Epstein had arranged for her to work on an art project at Wexner’s mansion in Ohio in the summer of 1996; that while she was there, Maxwell and Epstein came to the mansion, asked her into a bedroom, and sexually assaulted her against her will; that she fled the room and telephoned the sheriff’s office but got no response; that Wexner’s security staff refused to let her leave the property; and that she was held against her will for approximately twelve hours, until her father arrived from Kentucky and she was allowed to leave with him.5 No response from Wexner to this specific allegation is recorded in the documents cited on this page, and a search of his public statements about Epstein found none addressing it.

The 1996 report

The same affidavit states that on her return to New York she went to the New York Sixth Precinct police department for help, that officers there counseled her to contact the FBI, that she called the FBI and made a report, and that, to her knowledge, the Bureau took no action against Epstein or Maxwell; she adds that, to her knowledge, she was the first person to report them to the FBI.5 Maxwell’s motion to dismiss the indictment for pre-indictment delay, filed on February 4, 2021, quoted the New York Times of August 26, 2019 for the proposition that in 1996 Farmer “contacted the New York Police Department, and said she then went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, offering to share what she knew about Mr. Epstein and the parade of young women being brought to Mr. Epstein’s houses.”3 The same footnote adds Maxwell’s answer to it: “Of course, no FBI 302 has been produced corroborating this account.”3 Boies Schiller Flexner, opposing a defence subpoena two months later, described Farmer’s relevance to that motion as resting entirely on Maxwell’s argument “that the Government knew about the allegations against the Defendant when Maria Farmer reported them to the NYPD years ago.”8 Bradley Edwards, in a passage from his memoir that Maxwell’s lawyers filed as an exhibit, wrote that she “was the very first victim to ever come forward and report the duo to law enforcement, in 1996”; her own affidavit states the same claim only to her knowledge.95

Civil claim against Epstein’s estate

She sued the executors of Epstein’s estate in the Southern District of New York in November 2019 as Farmer v. Indyke, No. 19 Civ. 10474, represented by Boies Schiller Flexner.24 The firm later listed the case among the estate suits it had brought for Epstein survivors.4 The New York Law Journal reported that her complaint referred to Alan Dershowitz as having visited the house “on a number of occasions” and “would go upstairs at the same time the young girls were there,” but that the filing “did not contain any explicit allegations of wrongdoing by Dershowitz”; Dershowitz told the paper her account of seeing him at the house in 1995 was “categorically” false and said he had not visited until after her connection to Epstein ended in the summer of 1996.2 Counsel appeared on her behalf at a hearing in the Epstein estate’s probate proceeding in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands.10

In the Maxwell prosecution

A witness list e-filed on November 9, 2017 in Epstein v. Rothstein, the suit Epstein brought in Palm Beach County, named her among the witnesses the counter-plaintiff in that action expected to present.11 In the federal criminal case, Maxwell’s lawyers moved on September 7, 2021 for authority to serve a Rule 17(c) subpoena on her, saying they did not believe she was mentioned in the indictment but expected the government to offer her as a witness.12 The motion also recorded that she had said in public, in a podcast interview that aired on May 26, 2020, that she still held envelopes carrying “the touch DNA and fingerprints” of Epstein and Maxwell and had offered them to the FBI, which she said told her “we don’t need it.”1213 The defence wanted the envelopes in order “to examine those envelopes and to test them in advance of trial to disprove Maria Farmer’s claims.”12

The proposed subpoena, addressed to her care of Boies Schiller Flexner, demanded four things: the envelopes; the photographs, diaries, telephone books, Rolodexes and mementos that Edwards’ memoir described her showing him and Stanley Pottinger in June 2016; any fee or engagement agreement with a lawyer; and any submission she had made to the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program.1312 Maxwell’s counsel stated in a June 2022 filing that none of the four women whose victim status she contested, Farmer among them, had testified at the trial.6

Sentencing and the victim-status dispute

Her counsel, Sigrid McCawley, submitted her victim impact statement to the court in a letter dated June 22, 2022, asking, because of a medical issue, that it be read into the record rather than delivered in person.1 The government docketed her statement together with six other victims’ statements on June 24, 2022, in compliance with the court’s order that it do so promptly.1 Maxwell’s counsel objected to her being treated as a “crime victim” under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, writing that “Maria Farmer claims she was abused during the time period of the indictment; however, she was not a minor,” and that the federal offences of conviction required that the victim have been a minor.6 Maxwell also sought redactions of the statements.7

Judge Alison J. Nathan resolved this on June 24, 2022 without deciding the statutory question. The court held that it “need not resolve” whether the four contested individuals were CVRA crime victims, because 18 U.S.C. § 3661 places “[n]o limitation” on the information a sentencing court may consider, and it therefore exercised its discretion to permit Farmer and the three others “to be reasonably heard at sentencing through written submissions.”7 It denied the requested redactions, holding the statements to be judicial documents to which a presumption of public access attaches, and, as to the four contested individuals, it denied any request to speak in person; because Farmer had asked only that her own statement be read, this left her position unchanged.71 A further order of June 27 confirmed that all eight unredacted statements were part of the record and permitted those who had asked to make an oral statement to do so, which as to two of the four contested individuals reversed the June 24 denial; Farmer had not sought to speak in person and remained written-only.14 At the sentencing on June 28 the judge listed the written submissions he had received, Farmer’s among them.15

Claims against the FBI

The FBI’s own daily news briefings record the press reporting on her claims against the bureau. The briefing of July 28, 2023 summarised the New York Daily News of July 27: she and another Epstein accuser had filed a notice of claim with the FBI, “a prerequisite to suing a federal agency,” seeking $600 million on the ground that the bureau failed to investigate Epstein in the decades before his arrest.16 The briefing of July 26, 2023 summarised a Washington Examiner interview in which she said the New York Police Department had directed her to call the FBI and that she then spoke with an agent for 45 minutes.17 A briefing dated June 3, 2025 and marked “DRAFT” in its own subject line summarised an MSNBC opinion column reporting that she had filed suit against the federal government the previous week, and quoting the complaint’s allegation that the FBI, the Justice Department and United States Attorneys’ offices “failed to listen to or protect his sex-trafficked, sexually abused, and sexually exploited victims.”18 The same column said the suit was unlikely to succeed, in part because of the delay in bringing it.18 None of the documents cited here records a response from the FBI or the Department of Justice to the notice of claim or to the suit.

Coverage

  • New York Times, August 26, 2019, quoted in Maxwell’s pre-indictment-delay motion.3
  • New York Law Journal, November 12, 2019.2
  • Washington Examiner, July 25, 2023.17
  • New York Daily News, July 27, 2023.16
  • MSNBC, June 2, 2025 (opinion column).18

Footnotes

  1. United States v. Maxwell, S2 20 Cr. 330, Document 674. Government’s covering letter to the court, filed June 24, 2022, docketing the victim impact statements under the court’s order: https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00010663 p. 1 of 29. Victim impact statement of Maria Farmer, submitted by her counsel Sigrid S. McCawley in a letter dated June 22, 2022: https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00010663 pp. 10–11 of 29. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13

  2. Tom McParland, “Boies Schiller Sues Jeffrey Epstein Estate on Behalf of 3 Sexual Abuse Accusers,” New York Law Journal, November 12, 2019, circulated within the U.S. Attorney’s Office. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00105970 pp. 1–3 of 4. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  3. Memorandum in support of Ms. Maxwell’s motion to dismiss for pre-indictment delay, Document 138, filed February 4, 2021, p. 7 of 26 (footnote 2). https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00002504 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. Declaration of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in support of class counsel, Jane Doe 1 v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, No. 1:22-cv-10019 (S.D.N.Y.), Document 181, filed June 22, 2023, p. 6. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01652881 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Complaint, Giuffre v. Dershowitz, No. 1:19-cv-03377 (S.D.N.Y.), filed April 16, 2019, ¶ 58, citing her affidavit as Exhibit 12. https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017949, page 15 of the 28-page filing, carrying ¶ 58 in full. (This footnote previously pointed to https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017935, the complaint’s first Bates page, whose corpus row is not one page but a 174,119-character merge of the entire 28-page filing, so a pin taken from that row binds nothing; HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017949 is the same complaint’s page 15, split out and normally sized, and the quoted language below is confirmed on it in the text layer. 017935 was read at the image on 2026-09-14 and is one sheet — the caption page, stamped Case 1:19-cv-03377 Document 1 Filed 04/16/19 Page 1 of 28. An earlier version of this footnote said that “neither identifier could be rendered and checked at the image level”; the site’s PDF store does return HTTP 403 for both, which is a fact about that route, and the sheets themselves are ordinary page images. 017949 was not opened by this pass and nothing is certified about its face here.) The affidavit itself is at https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018027 (¶¶ 2–4), https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018028 (¶¶ 5 and 7 only), and https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018029 (jurat). Its jurat, read from the page image, is dated the 12th day of April 2019 before a notary in Broward County, Florida, the signature and notarial block both completed. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. Letter of Ghislaine Maxwell contesting CVRA victim status, Document 672, filed June 24, 2022, pp. 1–3 of 68. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00010592 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Order, Nathan, J., Document 682, filed June 24, 2022, pp. 1–3 of 4. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00010744 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Boies Schiller Flexner LLP to the Hon. Alison J. Nathan, April 5, 2021, Document 247, filed April 23, 2021, pp. 10–11 of 17. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00004001 ↩

  9. Excerpt from Bradley J. Edwards, Relentless Pursuit, filed as Exhibit A to the proposed subpoena. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00005113 p. 9 of 21. ↩

  10. Transcript, In re Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, Probate No. ST-19-PB-0080, Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, a hearing of February 4, 2020 as the transcript’s own cover page gives it, filed as Exhibit H, Document 734-8, on July 15, 2022, pp. 1–2 of 13. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00011506 ↩

  11. Seventh amended and supplemental witness list of the counter-plaintiff, Epstein v. Rothstein, No. 502009CA040800, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, e-filed November 9, 2017. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02760443 p. 2 of 22. ↩

  12. Ms. Maxwell’s second ex parte and in camera motion for an order authorizing a subpoena pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 17(c)(3), Document 336, filed September 7, 2021. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00005043 pp. 2–4 of 10. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  13. Proposed subpoena to Maria Farmer, Attachment A, Exhibit 2 to that motion, Document 336-2. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00005113 pp. 5–6 of 21. ↩ ↩2

  14. Order, Nathan, J., Document 686, filed June 27, 2022, pp. 1–2 of 2. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00010751 ↩

  15. Sentencing transcript, June 28, 2022, Document 737, filed July 22, 2022, pp. 3 and 69 of 101. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00011520 ↩

  16. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 28, 2023, summarising the New York Daily News of July 27, 2023. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00160472 p. 13. ↩ ↩2

  17. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 26, 2023, summarising the Washington Examiner of July 25, 2023. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00160489 p. 14. ↩ ↩2

  18. FBI Daily News Briefing, June 3, 2025 (subject line marked “DRAFT”), summarising an MSNBC opinion column of June 2, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655996 p. 11. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

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