Maria Farmer

Maria K. Farmer (born 1969) is an American visual artist known for providing the first criminal complaint to law enforcement, to the New York City Police Department and to the FBI, in 1996 about the conduct of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Farmer was born in 1969 or 1970 in Paducah, Kentucky to Frank Farmer and Janice Swain.

She has two younger brothers and two younger sisters.

The family lived for a time in Phoenix, Arizona.

From an early age, she had a set intention to become an artist.

In the mid 1990s, while Farmer was in graduate school, she reported selling her artwork for $20,000 directly from her studio.

Farmer attended Santa Clara University and graduated in 1992.

She relocated to New York City in 1993 to study at the New York Academy of Art.

She earned her master's degree from the Academy in 1995.

Farmer attended a post-graduate workshop at the Santa Fe Art Institute in 1995.

Farmer is a visual artist who primarily makes paintings and pastel drawings of individual people or groups of people.

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.

Although Farmer had already sold her painting for $12,000 to a German buyer, Epstein reportedly wanted to buy it at the reception for half price and Guggenheim urged Farmer to cut him a deal.

Prior to the introduction, Farmer was aware that Epstein regularly attended the Academy's events and frequently observed art students working in their studios.

The pair were known at the school to be important art patrons.

In the summer of 1995, Farmer was one of four artists chosen to attend an all-expenses-paid trip to Santa Fe.

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 New Mexico property.

However, no commission materialized.

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.

She continued to work for Epstein at the front desk of his New York mansion, signing in "tradesmen, decorators, and friends".

She observed a large number of young girls coming and going from the house, and stated that Maxwell would leave on frequent missions to recruit girls for Epstein.

She described Epstein showing 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.

Farmer reportedly saw lawyer Alan Dershowitz regularly visiting Epstein's New York home.

In the summer of 1996, Farmer was commissioned to create two artworks for the film set of As Good as It Gets.

At the time, Farmer was living in a small walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village.

Epstein offered her more space to create the artwork as an artist-in-residence 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.

The property was spacious but Farmer was disturbed to learn after arrival 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.

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.

She managed to escape into another part of the house and barricaded herself inside by pushing furniture up against the door.

She contacted members of her family, her mentor artist Eric Fischl, and reached out to authorities.

Security guards on the property told her that she could not leave and she was held against her will for 12 hours.

Farmer was eventually able to depart the scene when her father arrived, after driving from Kentucky to Ohio, to pick her up.

Later that summer, Farmer learned 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.

Farmer called the New York City Police Department and the FBI on August 26, 1996 and reported the assault.

The authorities did not take action regarding the assault.

The NYPD did make a report about the property theft of Farmer's artwork by Maxwell and Epstein.

Farmer, a figurative painter, had described her and her sister Annie's experiences of sexual misconduct from Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to a journalist at Vanity Fair in 2002 but the publication refrained from including it in their accounts.

In 2002, Farmer, her sister, and her mother also shared their stories with journalist Vicky Ward, then at Vanity Fair, who was writing a profile on Epstein.

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, whereas Maxwell had given her an inappropriate topless massage.