Maria Farmer reported Epstein in 1996. The FBI ignored her for a decade.
In the summer of 1996, Maria Farmer was a 26-year-old artist living in a walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village. She’d just landed a dream commission – two large-scale paintings for the film As Good as It Gets. Her employer, Jeffrey Epstein, offered her a better workspace: a 10,600 square foot house in New Albany, Ohio. More room to paint. More quiet to concentrate.
She drove there in a rental truck loaded with her art materials.
The house sat on land owned by Leslie Wexner, the Victoria’s Secret billionaire. Epstein had bought it from a Wexner-Kessler company for $3.5 million. But the property was surrounded on nearly every side by Wexner land. To reach it, you had to drive through roads controlled by Wexner companies. Armed guards patrolled the grounds. Dogs monitored the perimeter.
Farmer quickly discovered that leaving required permission. She had to call Abigail Wexner – Leslie’s wife – and ask if she could go outside. She wasn’t even allowed to run on the property without clearing it first. She got an Ohio driver’s license listing the estate as her address, just so she could pick up Epstein and Maxwell from the airport when they visited.
She remembers Epstein bragging about his relationship with Wexner. She told CBS News he said Wexner would do anything for him.
That summer, Epstein and Maxwell came to visit. In an upstairs bedroom, according to her affidavit, they sexually assaulted her.
Farmer managed to escape the room. She pushed furniture against the door to barricade herself inside another part of the house. She called her family. She called her mentor, artist Eric Fischl. She tried to reach authorities.
For twelve hours, Wexner’s security guards refused to let her leave the property. In her CBS interview, she recalled a staff member telling her: “You’re not going anywhere. You are never leaving.”
Her father finally drove up from Kentucky to retrieve her.
When Farmer got back to New York, she went straight to the NYPD’s Sixth Precinct. She told them everything – the assault, the young girls she’d seen streaming through Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, Maxwell recruiting what she called “the nubiles.” The police made a report about Epstein threatening to burn her paintings. For the sexual assault and trafficking allegations, they told her to call the FBI. Crimes in Ohio weren’t their jurisdiction.
So she called the FBI. According to her 2025 lawsuit, an agent hung up on her. No one followed up.
Maria Farmer filed what is widely considered the first criminal complaint against Jeffrey Epstein on August 26, 1996. The FBI did not open a formal investigation into him until May 23, 2006 – nearly ten years later. The case was codenamed “Operation Leap Year.” By then, dozens more girls had been abused.
In 2002, Farmer tried again. She and her sister Annie – who had been assaulted by Epstein at his New Mexico ranch that same period, when she was a teenager – spoke to journalist Vicky Ward for a Vanity Fair profile on Epstein. Their mother corroborated their accounts. Editor Graydon Carter killed the story before it ran. Their testimonies were excluded from the final article.
Epstein and Maxwell threatened Farmer repeatedly after she reported them. They told her they’d find out if she spoke again, that they’d hurt her and her sisters. She changed her name. She moved to North Carolina. For twenty-four years, she sold antiques and restored old houses across the Southeast, staying under the radar, trying to survive.
In 2006, FBI agents appeared at her door in North Carolina. They told her they’d tracked her down because of her 1996 complaint. They asked questions. Then, again, nothing happened. Epstein cut his plea deal in Florida. Maxwell continued operating freely.
Farmer was diagnosed with a brain tumor and non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 2019. She thought she might die before seeing any accountability. That same year, Epstein was finally arrested on federal charges. He died in his cell before trial.
The Wexners have said they never met Maria Farmer. A spokesperson told the Washington Post that Epstein’s house was not a “Wexner guest house.” But a former Wexner security officer told the same paper that his team monitored the home when Epstein owned it. Franklin County Auditor records show that reaching the property required driving through Wexner or Wexner-affiliated land. Farmer had an Ohio driver’s license with the estate address – the Post reviewed it.
In May 2025, Farmer filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging that the Justice Department, FBI, and U.S. Attorney’s offices failed to protect her and countless other victims through decades of negligence. Her filing includes a 1997 journal entry documenting her FBI report and 2006 FBI field notes that confirm she made the complaint in 1996.
The FBI declined to comment, citing its standard practice not to discuss litigation.
Farmer holds Wexner responsible for what happened to her. Not because she thinks he ordered the assault. Because it happened in a house surrounded by his property, guarded by his security team, in a town he essentially built. Because his guards told her she couldn’t leave. Because the whole system was designed to make her disappear.
Leslie Wexner has said he knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes. He has called being associated with Epstein embarrassing, has said he was taken advantage of by someone “so sick, so cunning, so depraved.”
Maria Farmer reported Jeffrey Epstein in real time. She told authorities exactly what was happening. She described the young girls, the modeling cover story, the assaults. She named names. She begged for help.
Five administrations came and went. Clinton. Bush. Obama. Trump. Biden. The government knew because she told them. They did nothing for nearly thirty years.
Go Deeper: Watch Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich on Netflix – Maria Farmer appears extensively in this four-part documentary, describing how she became the first person to report Epstein to authorities and what it cost her.
SOURCES
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/epstein-accuser-holds-victorias-secret-billionaire-responsible-as-he-keeps-his-distance/2019/10/05/1b6baf6c-d0d3-11e9-b29b-a528dc82154a_story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Farmer
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/new-albany/jeffrey-epsteins-connection-to-new-albanys-transformation/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-maria-farmer-holds-l-brands-ceo-leslie-wexner-responsible-for-assault-on-his-property/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-maria-farmer-says-ghislaine-maxwell-threatened-her-life-after-assault-fbi-failed/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-sues-federal-government-protect-victims-rcna209967
Timeline of Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell Law Enforcement Failures (1996-2025)