Democrat-Gazette online

The first police report of sexual misconduct against Jeffrey Epstein was filed in summer 1996, a staggering 11 years and countless victims before he was arrested. A painter named Maria Farmer was at an art show celebrating her graduation from the New York Academy of Art in 1995. She had already sold her paintings of her little sisters, one for $12,000, when--as she claims--Eileen Guggenheim, dean of students at the school, approached her. (Guggenheim denied this happened.)

According to Farmer, Guggenheim introduced her to her "dear friends, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein," and said that they were benefactors of the Institute who were going to buy Farmer's painting. When Maria said it was already sold, Guggenheim told Maria, "that's too bad," and that Maria would be selling it to the couple for a discount. Epstein said they would make it worth it for her and offered her a job at Epstein's mansion.

Maria said she was later fondled by both Maxwell and Epstein. She was particularly alarmed because before that happened, she had introduced the couple to her 16-year-old sister Annie, because Epstein and Maxwell offered to help Annie get the experience she needed to build her resume to get into college. This experience included going on a trip to Thailand and Vietnam. After the incident happened to Maria, she called Annie, who disclosed that she already had also been molested by both of them.

The family reported what had happened to the sisters both to the NYPD and the FBI in 1996. They never heard anything back. But after they reported it, someone from one of these places must have communicated the report to Epstein, because Maria says that Maxwell called her and told her that she was going to burn all her art and burn her career. Maxwell said she knew that Maria liked to run on the West Side Highway, and "that's not going to be a safe place" for her any more because "there's a lot of ways to die in the West Side Highway."

Maria said that for years when she moved somewhere new, Ghislaine would call her just to let her know that they were aware where she lived and that Maria was not safe there either, telling her to keep checking over her shoulder. Maria eventually moved to the mountains of North Carolina and changed her name, using an alias.

Maria heard nothing from the NYPD or the FBI for a decade. In 1997, Alicia Arden, an actress and model, filed a police report with the Santa Monica Police Department the same day she said she was assaulted by Epstein after an appointment with him. He lured her to meet by saying he was a Victoria's Secret scout.

In 2002, Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, assigned reporter Vicky Ward to find out who was this mysterious man, Epstein, who hung around with the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world. Ward had known the rumors about Epstein and had seen Trump's quote in New York magazine the same year in which Trump said that Epstein was "a terrific guy. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

In her reporting, Ward interviewed Maria and Annie Farmer and their mother for the first time on the record. When Epstein found out that Vanity Fair would be covering the Farmers in the piece, he showed up at Carter's office and threatened him, pressuring him not to include their story. During that period and after publication, Carter found a bullet outside his front door at his Manhattan home and a severed head of a dead cat in the front yard of his Connecticut home. Ward, who was pregnant at the time the piece was about to go to press, says that she received calls from Epstein asking where she planned to have the baby. He told her this report is going to be bad for "you and your family."

Ward, who continued to push relentlessly for the Farmers' story to be part of the piece, hired private security at the hospital while giving birth to protect herself and her twins. In March 2003, the article "The Talented Mr. Epstein" was published, covering his lavish lifestyle and the origins of his fortune, with zero mentions of the Farmers' claims. Carter denies omitting anything because of pressure from Epstein.

The first report from one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims came into the Palm Beach County Police two years later in March 2005. The stepmother of a 14-year-old girl called with a concern. There were some rumors going around about her stepdaughter at school, and another girl called her a "slut" because of them. Her stepdaughter and the girl got into a fight and were sent to the principal's office. The sum of $300 cash was found in her stepdaughter's purse.

That kind of cash on any 14-year-old child would be unusual, but it was extremely unusual in the parts of Palm Beach where most of Epstein's victims were targeted. Palm Beach Island is home to some of the uber-rich. Areas of West Palm Beach, where these girls lived, were working-class neighborhoods, including trailer parks where people resided on the edge of poverty. When her parents asked their 14-year-old where she got the $300, she said a classmate from school had taken her to a rich man's house who would pay them to give him a massage. The parent and child went to the police station, and the case was assigned to the special victims unit and Detective Joe Recarey.

In the quagmire of this story, it has been important for me to remember, as Mr. Rogers said, to look for the helpers. So many people were complicit in these crimes. Epstein's tentacles reached into so many corners that deciphering his network begins to feel like the whole world is evil. But that's not true. There were good people who fought for the victims. There are still heroes fighting today. This detective was one of the good guys.

Gwen Ford Faulkenberry is an author, teacher, and award-winning columnist from Ozark. She is a litigant in a case against LEARNS. Watch her vodcast here: https://small-town-girl.castos.com. Email her at gfaulkenberry@hotmail.com.

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