by Conor Murray at Forbes
Key Facts
Maria Farmer, who first brought sexual abuse claims against Epstein to the FBI in 1996, sued the federal government in Washington, D.C. federal court on Thursday, alleging the FBI “chose to do absolutely nothing” after she warned the agency about Epstien’s alleged sex crimes.
According to Farmer’s lawsuit, she said she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, while she stayed at Epstein’s estate as an “artist-in-residence” in 1996, and she accused them of stealing nude images of her minor sisters which Farmer had kept and used for her paintings.
While reporting her concerns to the FBI, Farmer said the agency hung up on her and failed to follow up or properly investigate, and she accused the agency of violating its Manual for Investigative Operations and Guidelines, which tasks the FBI with investigating violations of federal law.
Farmer also alleged she contacted the FBI in 2023 to request the agency investigate why it had ignored her complaints, to which the FBI allegedly responded they had other “priorit[ies] right now” and would “further assess” at a later time.
Farmer said the FBI’s alleged negligence “allowed Epstein to continue to sex traffic and sexually exploit girls and young women for years” and that “countless young women and girls would have been spared” if her concerns were investigated earlier.
Farmer’s lawsuit calls out Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom she notes has claimed the FBI possesses “thousands” of videos of child pornography from Epstein, stating her claims “could have been corroborated with minimal investigatory effort.”