Epstein Victim is Painting His Enablers as Murderous Lizard People

Courtesy of RadicalMedia

Maria Farmer was a young art student when Jeffrey Epstein threatened to ruin her career if she told of his abuse. Now, shes picking up her paintbrush again to agitate for justice.

Kate Briquelet

Senior Reporter

In Maria Farmers FBI diagram, dead sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is in a flying saucer, Ghislaine Maxwell is a bloodthirsty reptile, and a pantsless Alan Dershowitz is shushing victims underneath a tree of poisoned apples.

Im going to be working on a series all about the elites, Farmer told ishonest of her whimsical painting, a depiction of heaven and hell that features Les Wexner, the former chairman of Limited Brands and an Epstein associate, as the head of a snake. As someone whos been hurt by these people, I can translate it in a way that people can see.

Farmer, 50, is believed to be the first victim to report Epstein to police. She says Epstein and Maxwell assaulted her at Wexners Ohio estate, where she stayed in the summer of 1996 while working on an art project. (Wexner has denied knowing Farmer.) She later learned that Maxwell had allegedly assaulted her underage sister, Annie, at Epsteins New Mexico ranch. In a recent court filing, Maxwell has denied these accusations.

According to Farmer, Maxwell threatened her and worked to destroy her reputation in New Yorks art scene after the alleged incident. The young painter fled the city, leaving a promising art career behind. I was terrified of Maxwell and Epstein and I moved a number of times to try to hide from them, Farmer stated in an affidavit filed last year, when her story became public for the first time. Months after the court filing, Epstein would be dead. At age 66, the financier killed himself in a Manhattan jail as he awaited trial on child-sex trafficking charges.

Farmer says she stayed under the radar for 24 years, feeling her life was in danger because of the politically connected pair. She swapped high art for quietly selling antiques and restoring old houses across the southeast.

Now Farmer is creating again in earnest, drawing pastel portraits of Epstein's victims and painting fantastical scenes taking aim at what she refers to as the elites, or the socialites and dignitaries who turned a blind eye to the perverted wealth manager's abuse.

But while Farmer advocates for victims, shes also battling two forms of cancer, which she believes are ultimately the result of the trauma she experienced at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell years ago.

When I first found out that I have a brain tumor, I saw all the things I didnt get to do because Ive been in hiding, Farmer said. When I got the diagnosis, I started seeing a wedding, a baby, a group of friends, all the things Ive been deprived of. All the paintings, the gallery openings, the things that never happened.

I got really angry, and thats when I filed the affidavit.

This year, Farmer was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma and is expected to begin chemotherapy at the end of the week.

For Chartouni, the flood of donations has been emotional and overwhelming. She is a fighter, Chartouni said of Farmer. And people are really stepping up for her and saying something needs to happen. By supporting her, theyre saying what happened isnt okay and justice needs to be served, too.

Giuffre said that she and her fellow survivor sisters have become a family; they rally around one another when times are hard. We have this united struggle for the search for justice, Giuffre told ishonest. We need to keep Maria in the fight.

Dershowitz has denied Farmers claims. Last year, he told ishonest: Maria Farmer stopped working for Epstein before I ever met Epstein. Its a totally perjured affidavit. Its all totally made up. For her lawyers to submit these obviously perjured affidavits raises serious questions about their role in this case.

Courtesy of Maria Farmer

Her sister, Annie Farmer, said that seeing the way people have rallied around Maria has been a healing experience for her family.

She had a singular vision for her life more than anyone, Annie Farmer told ishonest. Going back and looking at her journalseven as a small child, she was writing about being a painter in New York.

Courtesy of Maria Farmer

My whole life I grew up knowing her as an artist. Its been hard to see her away from that passion. Seeing her reconnect with that, and seeing people respond to the emotion and power of her work is really gratifying, Annie added.

Maria is facing her biggest battle for her health, and the additional support through the GoFundMe means a lot, the sibling said. Every time she sees people who have written words of support and been so generous, it has really buoyed her spirits, I think, and made her feel cared for, Annie said.

Annie said her sister returned to art in recent years, after meeting longtime victims lawyer Brad Edwards. She feels lucky to be in on Marias process.

Its been really exciting to see her work take off in a new direction recently. As shes taking on the themes of the battles shes been fighting, its showing up in her work, Annie continued. Its definitely a departure in style in some ways. Shes allowing herself to be more free All the color and all the scale. Its pulling together so many different aspects of her experiences and the things she cares about.

Courtesy of Maria Farmer

On her website, Maria says, After a 20 year sabbatical of sorts, Ive returned with a series about the seemingly impossible. After my experiences of the NYC elites, I recognize that anything is possible! This consideration broadened my mind and made me reassess fantasy vs reality.

Courtesy of Maria Farmer

Meanwhile, she hopes to unveil some older piecescalled The Open Secret and sketched after her time at Wexners estateat an exhibition post COVID-19. Those images of abused young women are voyeuristic, Farmer says. Theyre quiet and soft and painful.

Courtesy of Maria Farmer

The Setiles, her playful and biting landscape depicting the glitterati linked to Epstein, was inspired by Dutch painter Hieronymus Boschs The Garden of Earthly Delights, a 15th century triptych oil painting. Her version also illustrates victims lawyers who fought for justice.

The title was inspired by a friend who is writing a sci-fi novel. Instead of elites, why dont you just call them setiles? the confidant asked. Farmer clarified to us: Its like elites but switching the letters around.

Scrawled above Farmers 7-foot-wide painting are the words FBI Diagram.

I wanted to do it from a childs viewpoint, Farmer said. What Im really doing is saying: FBI, if you cant follow this, you cant follow what a child would draw.

A decade later, she says, federal agents came to visit her when the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami probed Epstein, but nothing seemed to come of it.

In the painting, Epstein looks out from a flying saucer because I wouldnt have been surprised if Epstein went up in a spaceship, Farmer said. He almost got away with this.

This is about corruption at a much higher level, and he was just one of the pawns, Farmer added. The drawing emphasizes the absurdity of the fact that they let him go for so long.

Maxwell is inside a giant plastic bubble, attached to which is a property of FBI tag. Asked why the heiress was portrayed as a lizard in pearls who bit the head off a schoolgirl, Farmer said, She only has a reptilian brain. She doesnt care about what happens to anybody.

Im looking at the French Revolution drawings of that era, Farmer added. Theyre comedic. You dont get too wrapped up in the gore. (To that end, Farmer says her Setiles series will include future works, like The Seven Deadly Sins of Silicon Valley and Pedowood, about pedophiles in Hollywood.)

In the skies are Farmers attorneys, including Sigrid McCawley and Edwards, who are painted as cherubs. Edwards touches a floating paintbrush, since he encouraged her to pursue art again. Because, she says, he was an advocate when Epsteins exploitation of children didnt provoke national outrage. It was very unpopular to care about us and he cared anyway, she said.

I needed to know it was OK to paint again, Farmer said. Ghislaine Maxwell and Elaine Guggenheim chased me away from the arts and ruined my life.

Farmer was a student at the New York Academy of Art when she met Epstein. Guggenheim, then the dean of students, introduced her to the creepy financier. According to Farmer, Guggenheim forced her to sell Epstein her work titled The Rape, at a discount and ignored her claims about Epsteins sexual abuse.

A petition was recently launched demanding the academy remove Guggenheim as chair of the board of trustees. For her part, Guggenheim has denied Farmers accusations. (Guggenheim has said shes distantly related to the art- collecting family behind the Guggenheim Museum.)

I very specifically called her from the Wexner estate and told her all these horrible things that happened to me, Farmer told ishonest, and she hung up on me.

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