NEW YORK — A woman who says she was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell as a teen testified in disturbing detail Friday about how the couple gradually escalated their sick conduct.
Annie Farmer described on the stand in Manhattan Federal Court first meeting Epstein through her 25-year-old sister Maria on a 1996 trip from her native Arizona to New York City, where the older sibling was a New York Academy of Art student.
Maria introduced her kid sister to Epstein, who she said supported her art career.
Annie told jurors that a trip to the movies on the vacation hinted at the abuse to come.
“One night we went to the movies with Jeffrey Epstein. It was a little weird, one of those things that is hard to explain. We were sitting next to each other and he put his hand out for me to hold,” Farmer recalled, her voice cracking at times.
Epstein then “caressed” the teen’s arms and legs, she said, stopping and hiding the touching when Maria said something to him.
“It was one of those things that just gave me a weird feeling,” Farmer said.
Not long after the New York trip, Farmer said Epstein would invite her to his sprawling ranch in New Mexico for what was supposed to be an educational group trip. It was there she would meet Ghislaine Maxwell for the first time.
Farmer recalled that when she arrived, there were no other students. She was 16 years old and alone with Epstein and Maxwell.
Farmer said she took another strange trip to the movies, which featured Maxwell pulling Epstein’s pants down in the theater, Farmer said. The couple allegedly ramped things up from there.
Maxwell wanted to massage her.
“She asked if I’d ever had a professional massage,” the witness recalled. “She said that she wanted me to have that experience, and she would be happy to give me a massage.”
Farmer obliged but became uncomfortable when Maxwell allegedly asked her to entirely strip down.
“She pulled the sheet down and exposed my breasts and started rubbing on my chest and on my upper breasts,” Farmer said.
Pomerantz asked what Farmer’s reaction was when Maxwell touched her intimately.
“When she pulled down the sheet, I was kinda frozen,” she replied. “I just wanted so badly to get off the table and have this massage be done.”
Epstein wasn’t present, but Farmer said she sensed he was watching. The following day, the 43-year-old Epstein would climb into the teenager’s bed.
He was “saying he wanted to cuddle and so he climbed into bed with me and kind of lay behind me and reached his arms around me and like pressed his body into me,” said Farmer, who throughout her testimony sounded like she was on the brink of tears.
“Did you want to cuddle with Epstein?” asked Pomerantz.
“No,” Farmer responded firmly, telling the jury she would ultimately get out of the bed and say she needed to use the restroom.
Farmer was the first accuser to take the stand in the Maxwell trial using her full name.
In a win for Maxwell’s defense, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Alison Nathan told jurors they could not consider her testimony about physical contact between her, Maxwell, and Epstein as illegal. This is because it wasn’t illegal for an adult to have sex or sexual contact with a 16-year-old high school student in New Mexico in 1996.
Maria and Annie Farmer sued Epstein’s estate in the wake of his suicide, seeking damages his alleged abuse. They were among more than 100 women who resolved their claims through an out of court compensation fund that distributed nearly $125 million.
Maria says she was sexually assaulted by the couple when she was 26 and never spoke to them again. She contacted law enforcement in 1996, but Epstein maintained his lifestyle until his arrest and suicide in 2019.
“You have to understand that I have no faith in the justice system after 26 years. There’s no reason I should have faith, I would have to be an idiot to believe in it,” Maria told the Daily News on the trial’s eve.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to charges she trafficked minors for sex for Epstein from 1994 to 2004. Her lawyers have argued that the government is substituting her for Epstein because authorities can no longer bring him justice.
