‘Maxwell exposed my breasts and groped me’
Socialite made teenager lie naked on a massage table during visit to Epstein’s ranch, court told
‘I said I needed the bathroom. I wanted it to be over’
A VICTIM of Jeffrey Epstein told the FBI well over a decade ago that she had been groped by Ghislaine Maxwell when she was just 16, a New York court heard yesterday as the prosecution prepared to rest its case.
Annie Farmer, who was the last of four accusers to take the stand in Ms Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial, told how the British socialite made her lie naked on a massage table as she rubbed the teenager’s breasts during a visit to Epstein’s New Mexico ranch in 1996.
“I felt frozen, it didn’t make sense to me. I wanted so badly to get off the table,” said Ms Farmer, the only one of the alleged victims to testify under her real name.
The 42-year-old therapist said she reported the alleged abuse to police on several occasions, including in 2007, but they never followed up.
Ms Farmer told the Manhattan court that she had been introduced to Epstein by her older sister, Maria, who was 25 years old and employed by the financier at the time.
Asked by US assistant attorney Lara Pomerantz what her sister had told her about the billionaire financier, Ms Farmer said: “She had said that Epstein was interested in the possibility of helping me with my education.”
Ms Farmer recalled first meeting Epstein without Ms Maxwell during a visit to his Upper East Side town house, where he treated them to champagne and tickets to Phantom of the Opera.
On another occasion, she went to the cinema with Epstein and her sister. Ms Farmer claimed Epstein began stroking her hand and arm, at times interlocking their hands when Maria was not looking.
“I felt sick to my stomach,” she recalled. “It wasn’t something I was at all expecting and I noticed that when he would interact with my sister he would stop doing what he was doing.”
Asked why she had not told Maria about the incident, she said: “I was very confused about what had happened and I knew that she was very protective and if he had done something to make me uncomfortable … he was her boss, she might lose her job and it would be bad for her.”
She did however record the incident in her diary, which was introduced in evidence and shown to the jury yesterday.
She wrestled with how she felt about the encounter, describing it as a “little weird” and “one of those things that is hard to explain”.
She tried to write it off as Epstein “being fatherly or something”.
Ms Farmer said after that incident she felt uncomfortable about going to Epstein’s home outside Santa Fe in New Mexico.
But she testified that she did not believe Epstein would touch her again at the ranch as she was told Ms Maxwell, his then-girlfriend, would be present.
Ms Farmer described the April 1996 trip to New Mexico, where she met Ms Maxwell, 59, for the first time.
The three went on a shopping trip, where Epstein bought Ms Farmer a pair of $100 (£75) cowboy boots and Ms Maxwell bought her some hair products. Then, despite Ms Farmer’s reluctance, they went to the cinema to watch Primal Fear.
“It was not something I was eager to do, but I didn’t think anything would happen because Maxwell was there,” Ms Farmer told the court.
She described what then happened as “very similar to before – holding my hand, caressing it, rubbing my foot and arm. He didn’t seem concerned about hiding his behaviour,” Ms Farmer added.
Back at the ranch, she said that things took a darker turn. Upon Ms Maxwell’s instructions, the pair together gave Epstein a foot rub. “I felt very uncomfortable. I was hoping it would be over quickly,” Ms Farmer said. Ms Maxwell then offered to give her a massage.
“I was wearing nothing,” Ms Farmer claimed. “Maxwell told me to get undressed and then started rubbing my body, rubbing my back, legs and making small talk. At some point she had me roll over on to my back. Then she pulled down the sheets and exposed my breasts and started groping my chest.”
During the most graphic parts of her testimony, Ms Maxwell’s brother, Kevin, once again had his head in his hands. Ms Maxwell, who has denied all charges, seemed unmoved.
The following morning Ms Farmer alleged that Epstein got into her bed and started cuddling her and “pressed his body into me”.
She said she could not say “no” because she felt so isolated on his huge
‘I thought they were interested in me as a student, but they had a very different interest in me’
property in the desert. “I said I needed the bathroom. I wanted it to be over.”
These events were not detailed in her diary, however, and Ms Maxwell’s attorneys tried to suggest Ms Farmer’s memories of the alleged events had been reconstructed from entries made at the time and later reinterpreted.
Maria Farmer, a visual artist, has expressed guilt over having introduced Epstein to her younger sister.
Maria, who is not a part of this case, has claimed she was unaware of what went on with her sister at the ranch until she allegedly later had her own abusive encounter with the pair.
In an emotional end to a week of fraught testimony from the four alleged victims, Ms Farmer finished her questioning with the prosecution by saying: “I thought they were interested in me as a student, but they had a very different interest in me.”
The defence is set to begin its case next Thursday. The judge has suggested closing arguments might occur as soon as Dec 20 instead of in early January.