Maria Kristine Farmer[2] (born 1969 or 1970) is an American visual artist. She came to media attention in 2019 after she told reporters that in 1996, at the age of 26, she provided the first criminal complaint to the FBI about the conduct of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.[3][4]
In 2002, Farmer described her and her sisters experiences with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to a journalist at Vanity Fair. However, the publication elected not to include the allegation in the article, citing legal concerns.[5]
Early life
Farmer was born in 1969 or 1970 in Paducah, Kentucky, to Frank Farmer and Janice Swain.[6][7][8] She has two younger brothers and two younger sisters.[6][7] The family lived for a time in Phoenix, Arizona.[9] From an early age, she had a set intention to become an artist.[10]
Farmer is a visual artist who primarily makes figurative paintings and pastel drawings of individual people or groups of people.[3][6] According to an interview with the Daily Beast, Farmer also paints Epstein associates as "murderous lizard people".[15]
In the mid-1990s, while Farmer was in graduate school, she reported selling her artwork for $20,000 out of her studio.[3] At her graduate exhibition in 1995, the school's dean, Eileen Guggenheim, introduced Farmer to both Jeffrey Epstein, who served as a board member at the Academy from 1987 to 1994, and to his companion Ghislaine Maxwell.[13] Although Farmer had already sold her painting for $12,000 to a German buyer, according to Farmer, Epstein wanted to buy it at the reception for half price, and Guggenheim urged Farmer to cut him a deal (Guggenheim told ArtNet that she does not remember such an exchange).[13] Prior to the introduction, Farmer was aware that Epstein regularly attended the Academy's events and frequently observed art students working in their studios.[13] The pair were known at the school to be important art patrons.[3]
In the summer of 1995, Farmer was one of four artists chosen to attend an all-expenses-paid trip to Santa Fe.[16] Several of the artists confirmed that they attended a dinner party, hosted by Epstein and Maxwell with Guggenheim, that was designed to test the artists' boundaries within a bizarre and competitive environment where the women were promised that one of them would be rewarded with a major commissioned artwork for Epstein's Zorro Ranch, New Mexico property, 30 miles distant. However, no commission materialized.[16] Guggenheim would subsequently deny ever having been at the ranch, until presented with a photo that demonstrated that she had been there.[17]
Back in New York, Farmer was recruited to work for Epstein, first as his art advisor, where she oversaw the acquisition of artwork by Chuck Bowdish and Damian Loeb for Epstein's collection.[13] She continued to work for Epstein at the front desk of his New York mansion, signing in "tradesmen, decorators, and friends".[18][6] In 2019, Farmer said she observed a large number of young girls coming and going from the house, and said that Maxwell would leave on frequent missions to recruit girls for Epstein.[18] She alleges that Epstein showed her the security room at his New York mansion that was equipped with extensive video surveillance devices focused on the beds and toilets in the property.[19] Farmer reportedly saw lawyer Alan Dershowitz regularly visiting Epstein's New York home.[20]
Wexner artist residency and alleged assault
In the summer of 1996, Farmer was commissioned to create two artworks for the film set of As Good as It Gets.[21] At the time, Farmer was living in a small walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village.[21] Epstein offered her more space to create the artwork as an artist-in-residence[22] at a (10,600 sq. ft.) guest home on Les Wexner's property in New Albany, Ohio. In May 1996, Farmer traveled to the Wexner property in Ohio in a rental truck with her art materials and supplies.[21] In 2019, Farmed described the property as spacious, but alleged that the home was guarded by Wexner's armed security personnel and she was required to phone Wexner's wife, Abigail Wexner, for permission to leave the home or property.[23][21]
Farmer stated, in an affidavit filed in support of a defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre against Alan Dershowitz, that Epstein and Maxwell came to the property in Ohio and sexually assaulted her.[20] She alleged that she escaped into another part of the house and barricaded herself inside by pushing furniture up against the door.[3] She says she called members of her family,[6] her mentor artist Eric Fischl,[24] and reached out to authorities.[3] Security guards on the property reportedly told her that she could not leave and she was held against her will for 12 hours.[14][25] Farmer was eventually able to depart the scene when her father arrived, after driving from Kentucky to Ohio, to pick her up.[6]
According to Farmers 2019 account, Farmer learned in 1996 that her younger sister Annie had also been assaulted by Epstein when Annie had visited him at his Zorro Ranch in New Mexico in April 1996.[26][21] In a lawsuit filed in 2019 against Epstein's estate, Annie Farmer stated that Epstein had groped, harassed, and crawled into bed with her in New Mexico,[26] and Maxwell had given her an inappropriate topless massage.[21] During the 2021 trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, a judge determined that Annie's allegations about Epstein and Maxwell did not constitute "illegal sexual activity", but jurors could consider her testimony.[27][28]
In 2019, Farmer told reporters that she called the New York City Police Department on August 26, 1996.[3] The NYPD referred her to the FBI, because the incident was out of state.[3] Farmer says she reported the assault, alleging that authorities took no action.[29][3]
Farmer's complaint to the FBI was later released in 2025, handwritten in FBI paperwork and dated September 3, 1996:[30]
Complainant stayed [sic] that she is professional artist and took pictures of her sisters 12 and 16 yrs for her own personnel [sic] art work. Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers. Epstein at one time requested [redacted] to take pictures of young girls at swimming pools. Epstein is now threatening [redacted] that if she tells anyone about the photos he will burn her house down.[30]
In 2002, Farmer, her sister, and her mother reportedly shared their stories with journalist Vicky Ward, then at Vanity Fair, who was writing a profile on Epstein.[31] Their mention was excluded from the final story by then-editor Graydon Carter in 2003.[20][32] In 2019, Carter alleged that he had been pressured by Epstein at the time of publication to omit mention of the Farmer sisters;[6] and claimed that a bullet and a dead cat were found outside his home. However, Carter later recalled that the bullet appeared in 2004, not in 2003 when the Epstein article was under review.[31]
In 2019, art collector Stuart Pivar,[33][24] and artist Eric Fischl told reporters they were told about Farmers experience with Epstein.[6]
In 2019, Farmer alleged that Maxwell threatened her life repeatedly after the event.[22] In 2019, Farmer has said that following the Vanity Fair profile, threats from Maxwell intensified, leading her to leave the New York art world.[6] Farmer has stated that she received multiple direct threats from Maxwell and Epstein, who reportedly called her clients and contacts in the art world in an effort to destroy her credibility.[34] She stated: "I was terrified of Maxwell and Epstein and I moved a number of times to try to hide from them."[34] Farmer says she changed her name and moved first to North Carolina,[35] where she sold antiques and restored houses in the American Southeast, reportedly to stay under the radar.[10]
According to Farmer, in 2006 the FBI came to her door to question her just before Epstein's arrest for his first criminal prosecution, but she says little came of the matter.[22] Farmer was contacted once more in 2016, this time by lawyers who were working with Virginia Giuffre.[4] Still in hiding, Farmer recounted her experiences with Epstein and Maxwell to Stanley Pottinger and Bradley Edwards to assist in a better understanding of the defendants' patterns over time.[4]
After being diagnosed with a brain tumor by early 2019, Farmer described her realization and anger over the impact that the abuse (plus the years of hiding after threats to her life) had on her and her family as the impetus for speaking out publicly.[10] On April 16, 2019, Farmer filed a sworn affidavit in federal court in New York, alleging that she and her 15-year-old sister, Annie, had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell in separate locations in 1996.[21]
In an interview with Grazia in September 2019, Farmer expressed that it was the betrayal by women that she found hardest to bear in addition to the lack of interest with which the authorities handled her early reports of abusive behavior by Epstein and Maxwell.[36] In November 2019, Farmer was also interviewed by Anthony Mason for CBS This Morning.[37]
ABC News reported that Farmer and her younger sister Annie Farmer[38] shared similarities with Chauntae Davies[39] and her younger sister Teala Davies[40] in that Epstein manipulated the trust within both family groups to further his criminal interest in abusing young girls.[41]
In late 2019 and early 2020, five victims in the Ohio State University abuse scandal called on state and federal officials to conduct further inquiry into Farmer's allegations of sexual assault at the Wexner property.[23][42]
Farmer appeared in a four-part Netflix series, released in May 2020, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, directed by Lisa Bryant and based on the earlier book of the same name by James Patterson.[43]
The New York Academy of Art issued an apology to Farmer in August 2020 after several female board members resigned from the organization.[44]
Later artwork
In January 2020, Farmer was working on a series of paintings and pastel drawings called "The Survivors Project" consisting of individual portraits of known survivors of Epstein's abuse.[3][10] She claims the harm experienced by countless other victims of Epstein could have been prevented had authorities acted when she first reported the abuse.[3]
Farmer created a seven foot long artwork on canvas about the Epstein abuse network which depicted individuals involved in the scandal in a style akin to Hieronymus Bosch.[10]
123Edwards, Bradley J.; Henderson, Brittany (2020). "Paducah and Beyond". Relentless Pursuit. New York: Gallery Books. pp.277–85. ISBN978-1-9821-4815-7.
↑Folkenflik, David (22 August 2019). "A Dead Cat, A Lawyer's Call And A 5-Figure Donation: How Media Fell Short On Epstein". NPR. Ward interviewed two sisters, Maria and Annie Farmer. They alleged [...] Epstein sexually assaulted her at his vast New Mexico ranch [...] In March 2003, Vanity Fair did publish Ward's piece [...] It did not report the Farmers' accusations of abuse.
↑Patterson, James; Connolly, John; Malloy, Tim (2016). "Vicky Ward: November 2002". Filthy Rich. New York: Little Brown and Company. pp.149–52. ISBN9780316274050.
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