Maria Farmer Contacts FBI About Epstein Assault
Maria Farmer contacts the FBI and NYPD to report being sexually assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Epstein's Zorro Ranch and New York townhouse. Law enforcement takes no action, citing Epstein's 'powerful connections.'
People Involved
Event Details
In the fall of 1996, artist Maria Farmer became the first known person to formally report Jeffrey Epstein to federal law enforcement. Having experienced sexual assault at the hands of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and having witnessed what she understood to be the trafficking of a minor, Farmer contacted both the FBI and the New York Police Department.
Farmer later recounted that FBI agents responded to her report by telling her that Epstein had “powerful friends” and that the investigation would “go nowhere.” No investigation was opened. No charges were filed.
This failure represented one of the earliest documented instances of law enforcement declining to pursue credible complaints against Epstein — a pattern that would recur for nearly a decade before the Palm Beach Police Department initiated its own investigation in 2005.