'Maxwell was the mastermind'
Annie account Farmer’s of sexual devastating abuse kept courtroom Ghislaine behind bars. Now her sister Maria — another victim and the first to blow the whistle on Epstein — claims in full harrowing detail that it was Maxwell, not the tycoon, who always s
‘She’s never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes’
For talented young artist Maria Farmer, it was the night she’d been working towards for months — her graduation show at the prestigious New York Academy of Art.
Maria, then 25, was ecstatic, having sold all three of her exhibited paintings for fivefigure sums.
Then a senior staff member appeared at her shoulder, took her arm and pointed out two people she’d never seen before.
‘This couple here are going to buy your art . . . they’re very important benefactors of the academy,’ she was told.
It was Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and they got the painting they wanted — a seminaked man observing a sleeping girl, inspired by Edgar Degas’s The rape — for $6,000, half the price Maria had been offered earlier.
Fast-forward 25 years and this week Maria’s younger sister gave an emotional statement to a Manhattan court about why Maxwell should not be granted bail.
Speaking via an audio feed from her home in Texas, psychotherapist Annie Farmer, one of three women whose claims are the basis for the criminal case against the British socialite, said Maxwell was a ‘sexual predator’ who had ‘never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes or the devastating, lasting effects her actions caused’.
Maria, who says she feels guilty for unwittingly bringing her then teenage sister into the orbit of Maxwell and Epstein, was the first person to report the pair’s alleged sexual abuse of underage girls in 1996. But her attempts to get the police and FBI to investigate the attack on Annie, then 16, were ignored, leaving Epstein free to pursue his depravity.
The sisters’ story is shocking and their determination to get justice remarkable. Now, at last, their voices are being heard. Annie’s testimony was a key factor in the judge’s decision to deny Maxwell bail and keep her in a New York jail cell before her trial next year — which is as it should be, Maria told the Mail yesterday.
For her, Epstein — who was found dead in his remand jail cell last year — isn’t the worst villain in this scandal.
‘That woman was much more sinister than Epstein, and to me, much more dangerous,’ she says. ‘She was definitely the mastermind. She was in charge.’
Maria worked for Epstein, a financial guru, for a year, during which time she says she saw first hand Maxwell’s astonishing charm and her terrifying viciousness.
The smart and well-bred English woman — a ‘cool sister’ figure at first, Maria says — showered her with kindness and attention. But, Maria claims, she also tried to inveigle her in her hideous enterprise of procuring young girls for Epstein.
Maria says she fled after the couple sexually assaulted her. Later, to her utter horror, she discovered they had done the same to her 16-year-old sister, Annie.
Even then, she says Maxwell pursued her with dire threats against her safety and forced her into years of hiding.
Maria has rarely discussed her ordeal but, her voice often shaking with emotion, she described her joy that Maxwell — who denies sex trafficking and perjury charges — is finally facing justice.
Her first impression of Epstein and Maxwell in New York was not favourable — not least because she was directed to sell them one of her paintings at a loss. ‘My first impression was that they were very cheap but also very strange,’ she says. ‘I kind of felt sorry for them because she was dressed so garishly and I just felt “Yuck.”’
However, the next time she met Maxwell — when she was invited to stay on Epstein’s ranch in New
Mexico with other alumni from her art school — Maria thought ‘she was the most elegant thing in the world’.
She explains: ‘Ghislaine rode up on this white horse in this fabulous equestrian attire. Very elegant and well-spoken. She was charming.’ Several months after the art show, Epstein offered Maria a $1,000-a-month job managing his art collection and later manning the reception at the vast mansion he was renovating in Manhattan, the location of many of his subsequent sex crimes, and
‘Some were so young they had braces’ Maxwell ‘was an emotional terrorist’
where Prince Andrew was later a guest.
As soon as Epstein moved into the house, one of the largest private residences in the city, the endless trail of passing workmen and decorators stopped and, says Maria, ‘it started getting weird’.
The visitors were now ‘children’ — girls so young that some were wearing braces and school uniforms — and, sometimes arriving at the same time were ‘prominent individuals’ whose names she doesn’t want to disclose.
Maxwell, she says, told her the underage girls were auditioning as models for Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie brand owned by Epstein’s friend and client, billionaire Les Wexner, and for a fashion venture she and Epstein called the Limited Corporation.
Maria says she once met Donald Trump in Epstein’s office and says the future U.S. president cast an appraising eye over her before Epstein said: ‘She’s not for you.’
Given they were supposedly hiring models, neither Epstein nor Maxwell had to hide the fact that the girls were underage. Maria claims she recalls how Maxwell would fly out of the house on the hunt for new blood around 3pm each day when school ended, screaming: ‘I need to get the nubiles!’
In return, Epstein spoiled Maxwell, says Maria. She had an entire floor at each of his homes. In his New York mansion, it was decorated pink and was ‘incredibly lush’.
Her private quarters at Epstein’s Palm Beach house in Florida included a room with what Maxwell is said to have called a ‘sex swing’, and another outlandish device that she boasted was the secret of her youthful appearance. ‘I hang upside down like a bat for 45 minutes and it makes me look really young,’ she told Maria.
Both Epstein and Maxwell could lay on the charm and flattery when they wanted, says Maria. Epstein ‘made you feel like he was the most special person on Earth’, while Maxwell ‘made you feel special and safe’, she recalls.
Indeed, the couple told
Maria they were married ‘to make me feel safe’. They would take her and other young women out for outings — shopping, rollerblading or the cinema. Maxwell ‘would just dote on you — make you’d feel like you’d won the lottery and that, wow, I must be really cool because this super-smart lady from Great Britain is paying attention to me’, she says. ‘You know when you’re young you just think the accent is so cool. Hers was so proper and posh.’ Now, she has no doubt what lay behind the lovebombing. ‘They were grooming me,’ she says simply — and, indirectly, plotting to get access to her sister. In her mid-20s at the time, Maria is convinced she was too old to be of sexual interest to Epstein. But Maxwell — who allegedly employed a group of younger Epstein acolytes to satisfy his vast appetite for new underage girls — had other uses for her.
Around six months after she started working for Epstein, Maria says Maxwell invited her to her own apartment on New York’s Upper East Side.
There, she made a play for sympathy by claiming that while she only wanted Epstein’s love, he ‘just loves all these women’ and admitted they weren’t married, but ‘just dating’. She told Maria that a teenage girl was coming round whom she was determined to make a Victoria’s Secret model.
Maxwell wanted Maria to convince her what a wonderful couple she and Epstein were to work for.
‘She was beautiful with long, blonde hair,’ recalls Maria of the 19-year-old whom she claims Maxwell conceded was ‘older than Jeffrey usually wants’. The girl told Maria an extraordinary story of what had just happened — Epstein, a stranger, had said hello to her as she’d been walking through Central Park with her boyfriend. Epstein had then called Maxwell. who, it is said, rushed into the park and, after an hour, tracked the girl down and asked her about modelling.
Epstein relied on Maxwell to procure girls ‘one million per cent’, claims Maria. ‘He was extremely awkward with women. He had zero sex vibe. I couldn’t figure out whether he was gay or what.’ When Maxwell was out of earshot, Maria whispered to the girl that Epstein never paid her properly. Maxwell never again asked her to help recruit anyone, she says.
As time passed, and able to observe Maxwell on a daily basis in Epstein’s mansion, Maria says she soon saw a far less pleasant side to her.
‘What made her tick was power and control over vulnerable people,’ she claims, not least the Filipina maids whom she treated as though they were barely human.
It has been alleged Maxwell often joined in with Epstein in his sexual assaults on underage girls, but Maria believes she was drawn by power rather than lust.
‘She was an emotional terrorist with a sadomasochistic side — she enjoyed harming people and having that power and control,’ she declares .
It is the prosecution’s case that they acted as one in their alleged sex crimes, but Epstein and Maxwell were very different personalities, Maria claims.
‘Epstein definitely had a dark side, but Maxwell would turn on a dime into a very malicious, brutal human being — and I never saw that of Epstein,’ she claims. ‘She would just suddenly become psychotic, and it scared me to death.’
A sheet of paper incorrectly placed on a desk was enough for Maxwell to ‘vent’ such fury that it made Maria cry.
Then Epstein would come and dry her tears. ‘It was a sick pattern for them — good cop, bad cop.’
Maria may have been too old for Epstein’s tastes but that didn’t stop him and Maxwell molesting her, she alleges, in what she claims was an attempt to strengthen their power over her.
It is said to have happened in the summer of 1996 after Epstein invited Maria to paint at Les Wexner’s vast estate in Ohio — at the time she was working on a series of pictures of pubescent girls and using photos of her two younger sisters as models.
She claims that Epstein and Maxwell came to visit her. That night, she said Maxwell asked her to give Epstein a foot massage. She thought it ‘so inappropriate’, but obliged.
It became far, far worse when the trio ended up lying on Epstein’s bed with Maria in the middle and the other two ‘mechanically’ groping her, she claims. Maria allgeges that they twisted her nipples painfully, and insulted her about her small stature and large bust.
As she wept, Maxwell is said to have reassured her: ‘Shhh, it’s going to be OK.’
She says she was scared that she was going to be raped, and so ran back to her bedroom and barricaded the door. She didn’t emerge until she knew the couple had left in the morning .
When she did, she claims she discovered that three nude photos — two of Annie and another of their 12-yearold sister — were missing .
‘It was emotionally devastating for me but mainly because the whole time I was thinking: “My sister’s been alone with them ... Oh my God,” ’ she told me.
For by then, Maria claims Epstein and Maxwell had inveigled Annie into their twisted world.
In fact, Maria is convinced
that one of the reasons the c ouple spent so much time grooming h er, a s s he s ays, w as s o they could get access to her t eenage sister.
As s oon a s h e k new o f h er e xistence, Epstein asked to see p hotos of Annie, says Maria who claims she remembers Maxwell looking at them and saying: ‘She’s perfect.’
Maria knew the couple were ‘weird’ but says she had no notion they might, as she believes, have sexual designs on her underage sister.
It i s s aid t hey t ried t o p ersuade Maria to bring Annie to New York t o b e a m odel, b ut t hat h eld no a ppeal f or t he b rainy t eenager who had academic ambitions.
When he discovered Annie wanted to go to university, it is said that Epstein saw his opportunity and offered to help financially, f lying h er t o N ew Y ork f rom the family home in Arizona. Annie found Epstein to be charming — until he took the s isters to the cinema.
Sitting between them, Epstein began rubbing Annie’s hand and then h er l ower l eg. S he l et i t p ass and did not tell her older sister. He then offered to pay for Annie to visit Thailand to improve her CV f or c ollege a pplications — b ut first invited her to his new ranch for the weekend. Annie assumed she’d be one of many students there who were benefiting from
Epstein’s l argesse, b ut s he a rrived to f ind h erself a lone w ith E pstein and M axwell.
She claims that Maxwell repeatedly asked her if she wanted a m assage a nd s he f inally gave in. Annie claims that she ended u p b eing t opless a nd l ying on h er b ack a s M axwell m assaged her chest in an ‘inappropriate’ way. She sensed Epstein was nearby, watching.
Butthe‘scariestmoment’ofthe weekend, Annie claims, was when E pstein c ame i nto h er b edroom o ne m orning a nd a sked f or a ‘ cuddle’, c rawling i nto b ed w ith her. ‘He was touching me and I don’t know how long that lasted because I was sort of checking out a bit,’ she has said.
Shesaysthatsheeventuallyexcused herself and hid in the b athroom.
Maria claims it was only after her own sexual ordeal at the handsofEpsteinandMaxwellthat s he s poke t o h er s ister a bout it and was horrified to discover what had happened to Annie.
Back h ome i n N ew Y ork, M aria went to the police but they told her that alleged offences c ommitted in Ohio and New Mexico were outside their jurisdiction. She called the FBI and s pent h alf a n h our d escribing what had happened. The FBI never rang back.
In 2003, the sisters spoke to Vanity Fair magazine, which was researching an article about Epstein’s business activities. Maria says Maxwell started m aking threatening calls soon after, making clear she knew her movements i n t he c ity a nd t elling her: ‘Better be careful and watch yourback.’Theeventualstoryomitted a ll m ention o f t hem.
Maria left New York and went into hiding, renovating houses for a living.
She s ays i t’s ‘ disgusting’ t hat i t took s o l ong t o b ring E pstein a nd Maxwell to justice, but she’s savouring the moment of the latter’s downfall.
‘Revengeisbestservedcoldlike this because Ghislaine wasn’t expecting it,’ she says. ‘If you’d got away with something for a quarter of a century, why would you expect that to c hange.’
What d oes s he h ope h appens t o M axwell now? ‘I hope she sits there [in prison] for ever. I also hope it really pains her to know she’s just this plebeian prisoner with a number,’ Maria states.
‘I have waited 25 years — half my life — for this and, for Annie and me, it’s a miracle.’
‘I hope it pains her to be just a prisoner’