Farmer is a visual artist who primarily makes paintings and pastel drawings of individual
people or groups of people.[2] In the mid 1990s, while Farmer was in graduate school, she
reported selling her artwork for $20,000 directly from her studio.[2]
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.[11] 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.[11] Prior to the introduction, Farmer was aware that Epstein regularly
attended the Academy's events and frequently observed art students working in their
studios.[11] The pair were known at the school to be important art patrons.[2]
In the summer of 1995, Farmer was one of four artists chosen to attend an all-expenses-
paid trip to Santa Fe.[13] 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.[13] However, no
commission materialized.[13]
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.[11] Later, Farmer continued to work for Epstein at the front desk of his New York
mansion, signing in "tradesmen, decorators, and friends."[14][4] She observed a large
number of young girls coming and going from the house, and stated that Maxwell would
leave on frequent missions to go get girls for Jeffrey.[14] Farmer also 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.[15] Farmer
Wexner artist residencyEdit
In the summer of 1996, Farmer was commissioned to create two artworks for the film set of
Greenwich Village.[19] Epstein offered her more space to create the artwork as an artist-in-
residence[20] at a (10,600 sq. ft.) guest home on Les Wexner's property in New Albany, Ohio.[19] In May 1996, Farmer traveled to the Wexner property in Ohio in a rental truck with her art materials and supplies.[19] 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 Abigail
Wexner for permission to leave the home or property.[21][19]
Farmer has stated, in an affidavit filed in support of a defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia
sexually assaulted her.[18] She managed to escape into another part of the house and
barricaded herself inside by pushing furniture up against the door.[2] Then she contacted
members of her family, her mentor artist Eric Fischl,[22] and reached out to authorities.[2]
Security guards on the property told her that she could not leave and she was held against
her will for 12 hours.[12][23] Farmer was eventually able to depart the scene when her father
arrived, after driving from Kentucky to Ohio, to pick her up.[4]
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.[24][19] In a lawsuit filed in 2019 against Epstein's
estate, Annie Farmer revealed that Epstein had groped, harassed, and crawled into bed with
her in New Mexico,[24] whereas Maxwell had given her an inappropriate topless massage.[19]
and reported the assault.[16][2] The authorities did not take action regarding the assault.[25]
The NYPD did make a report about the property theft of Farmer's artwork by Maxwell and
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.[26] Despite the Farmer sisters and their mother giving voice to the misconduct, their mention was excluded from the final story by then-editor Graydon Carter.[18][27] NPR and the New York Times reported that Carter had been pressured by Epstein at the time of publication to omit mention of the
Farmer sisters;[4] Carter's residence and the Vanity Fair office had each received ominous signals (a bullet and a cat's head) at times corresponding to when they might have further investigated Epstein.[26]
The art collector Stuart Pivar confirmed that he learned of Farmer's experience shortly after
it occurred.[28] Artist Eric Fischl also corroborated Farmer's account and confirmed being contacted by her.[4] Maxwell
threatened Farmer’s life repeatedly after the event in an effort to enforce her silence.[20] Following the Vanity Fair profile on Epstein in which editors decided not to publish Farmer's account, she has stated that the threats intensified, leading her to leave the New York art world.[4]
Farmer has stated that she received multiple direct threats from Maxwell and Epstein, who also called her clients and contacts in the art world in an effort to destroy her credibility.[29] She stated: “I was terrified of Maxwell and
Epstein and I moved a number of times to try to hide from them.”[29] After enduring
persistent threats, Farmer changed her name and moved first to North Carolina.[30] For 24
years, she quietly sold antiques and restored houses in the Southeast, in an effort to stay
The FBI reappeared in 2006 at Farmer's door to question her just before Epstein's arrest for his first criminal prosecution, but little came of the matter.[20]
Farmer was contacted once more in 2016, this time by lawyers who were working with
Virginia Giuffre.[3] Still in hiding and reluctant to trust anyone following the betrayal by Vicky
Ward and Vanity Fair, Farmer did choose to recount her experiences with Epstein and Maxwell to Bradley Edwards and Stanley Pottinger in the event it could assist in a better understanding of the defendants patterns over time.[3]
Decision to speak out publiclyEdit
After being diagnosed with a brain tumor by early 2019, Farmer described her realization and anger over the impact that the abuse (plus the years of hiding after threats to her life) had on her and her family, as the impetus for
speaking out publicly.[8] On 16 April 2019, Farmer filed a sworn affidavit in federal court in
New York, alleging that she and her 15-year-old sister, Annie, had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell in separate locations in 1996.[19]
In an interview with Grazia in September 2019, Farmer expressed that it was the betrayal by
women that she found hardest to bear in addition to the disinterest with which the authorities handled her early reports of abusive behavior by Epstein and Maxwell.[31] In November 2019, Farmer was also interviewed by Anthony Mason for CBS This Morning.[32]
ABC News reported that Farmer and her younger sister Annie shared similarities with
Chauntae Davies and her younger sister Teala in that Epstein manipulated the trust within
both family groups to further his criminal interest in abusing young girls.[33]
scandal, publicly called on state and federal officials to conduct further inquiry into Farmer's allegations of sexual assault at the Wexner property.[21][34] The group of men called for greater accountability regarding the Wexner
family's involvement in Epstein's abuse and raised their concerns about the continuing
influence of Abigail and Leslie Wexner serving as the "biggest and best-known benefactors" of the university.[21][34]
Filthy Rich", directed by Lisa Bryant and based on the earlier book of the same name by
Recent artworkEdit
In January 2020, Farmer was reportedly working on a series of paintings and pastel drawings called “The Survivors Project” consisting of individual portraits of known survivors of Epstein's abuse.[2][8] She has stated that the harm
experienced by countless other victims of Epstein could have been prevented if authorities
had listened when she first reported the abuse.[2] An exhibition of Farmer's artwork was
scheduled to open on March 14, 2020 at the Gavlak Gallery in Los Angeles.[2]
Farmer created a seven foot long artwork on canvas about the Epstein abuse network
Her painting, known as “The Setiles”, (a word reversal of elites) includes representations of
Maxwell, Epstein, and Dershowitz, as well as other key figures involved in either suppressing or amplifying the call for justice from the survivors.[8].....
Posts
