It was the summer of 1996 when Maria Farmer went to law enforcement to complain about Jeffrey Epstein.
At the time, she said, she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and his long-time partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Farmer, then in her mid-20s, had also learned about a troubling encounter that her younger sister – then a teenager – had endured at Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico. And she described facing threats from Epstein.
Farmer said that when she discussed her concerns with the New York Police Department, then with the FBI, she also urged them to take a broader look at the people in Epstein’s orbit, including Donald Trump, then still two decades from being elected president. She repeated that message, she said, when the FBI interviewed her again about Epstein in 2006.
In interviews last week about what she told the authorities, she said she had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Epstein’s associates. But she said she was alarmed by what she saw as Epstein’s pattern of pursuing girls and young women while building friendships with prominent people, including Trump and Bill Clinton.
RM Block
Investigations like the ones that targeted Epstein often explore a wide range of tips, evidence, recollections and relationships, little of which ends up being used in court records or as the basis for criminal prosecution. Epstein’s voluminous investigative file contains many records that have not been made public, but that became the focus of claims, long stoked by Trump’s allies, that authorities might have covered up the involvement of other rich and powerful men.
Now, after his attorney general and FBI director abruptly abandoned their earlier promises to reveal everything about the Epstein files and said, in effect, that there was nothing to see, Trump’s ties to Epstein are under renewed scrutiny, leading to questions about what so-far-undisclosed appearances he might have in the investigative record.
The story of Farmer’s efforts to call law enforcement attention to Epstein and his circle shows how the case files could contain material that is embarrassing or politically problematic to Trump, even if it is largely extraneous to Epstein’s crimes and was never fully investigated or corroborated.
And it underscores the complexities of opening up to scrutiny all the leads that investigators pursued, the evidence they gathered and the interviews they conducted, little of which ever went before a judge or jury.
Law enforcement agencies have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, and he has never been identified as a target of any associated investigation. Trump last week called for relevant grand jury testimony in the prosecution of Epstein to be publicly released, and has repeatedly dismissed any notion that he has something to hide. Even if that testimony is released, it is unlikely to shed much light on the relationship between the two men, which did not figure prominently in Epstein’s criminal cases.
Farmer said she has long wondered how law enforcement agencies handled her complaints in 1996 and 2006.
And she said she has been wondering in particular whether federal authorities did anything with her concerns about Trump. She said that he raised his name both times, not only because he seemed so close to Epstein but because of an encounter, which she has previously described publicly, that she said she had with Trump in Epstein’s New York office.
The encounter with Trump, Farmer said, occurred in 1995 as she was preparing to work for Epstein. She said she told the authorities that late one night, Epstein unexpectedly called her to his offices in a luxury building in Manhattan, and she arrived in running shorts.
Trump then arrived, wearing a business suit, and started to hover over her, she said she told the authorities.
Farmer said she recalled feeling scared as Trump stared at her bare legs. Then Epstein entered the room, and she recalled him saying to Trump: “No, no. She’s not here for you.”
The two men left the room, and Farmer said she could hear Trump commenting that he thought Farmer was 16 years old.
After her encounter with Trump, Farmer said, she had no other alarming interactions with him, and did not see him engage in inappropriate conduct with girls or women.
The White House on Friday night contested Farmer’s account and cited Trump’s long-ago decision to end his friendship with Epstein.
“The president was never in his office,” said Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, referring to Epstein. “The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
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Farmer, an artist, worked for Epstein in 1995 and 1996, initially to acquire art on his behalf but then later to oversee the comings and goings of girls, young women and celebrities at the front entrance of his Upper East Side town house.
In 1996, Farmer said she went to stay at Epstein’s estate in Ohio in a complex developed by Leslie H Wexner, the chief executive of the company that owned Victoria’s Secret. Epstein and Maxwell came that summer.
Farmer said that after she was asked to give Epstein a foot massage, he and Maxwell violently groped her until she fled the room and barricaded herself in another part of the building. Farmer was an artist who did work on nude figures, and she also reported that partially nude photos she had of her two younger sisters were missing from a storage lockbox.
Over the years, Farmer has been attacked by people who questioned whether she could be trusted. She was not called to testify when Maxwell was prosecuted and convicted in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to sexually exploit and abuse girls. (Her sister Annie did testify in the case about how Maxwell had massaged her bare chest after she had been invited to Epstein’s estate in New Mexico.)
But Farmer’s mother said she remembered hearing in 1996 about the Trump encounter around the time it occurred, and that Maria Farmer had first gone to the FBI that year. Annie Farmer also said she remembered Maria sharing that she had told the FBI about Epstein and powerful people such as Trump and Clinton.
In her first interviews with the New York Times in 2019, Maria Farmer said that before she talked to the FBI, she first spoke to the Precinct of the New York Police Department. Police records show that she had done that in August 1996.
Law enforcement agencies have not released records of any FBI report Farmer made in 1996, but handwritten notes from the interview agents did with her a decade later match her account, including that “6th precinct told MF to call FBI”.
The portions of those FBI records that have been released do not mention Trump, but much of the account remains redacted.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Epstein was indicted in 2006 and later pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including soliciting a minor, in a deal that avoided federal charges. In 2019, he was charged again, accused of trafficking dozens of girls, some as young as 14, and engaging in sex acts with them. He was later found dead in a jail cell, and officials have said he hanged himself.
It is unclear whether federal investigators pursued a deeper examination of Trump’s relationship with Epstein or whether the authorities documented what Farmer said she told them about Trump.
Trump’s friendship with Epstein has been captured in videos of them partying together and comments the men have made, and his name appears in some previously released case records, including Epstein’s flight logs. Trump was quoted in 2002 as calling Epstein a “terrific guy”. He has since said that he is “not a fan” of Epstein, and has emphasised that he broke with him two decades ago.
In recent years, Trump’s allies have pressed for further release of federal files related to Epstein. But after initially promising full disclosure, Attorney general Pam Bondi suddenly backtracked this month, saying that a review of the case found nothing to indicate that anyone else should be charged.
Amid a backlash from his supporters in recent days, Trump has assailed those still calling for more disclosure. After The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Epstein had received a sexually suggestive birthday greeting from Trump in 2003, Trump called the report a hoax and sued the news organisation.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
