(The Hill) — Maria Farmer, among the accusers of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, rejoiced Friday after the Department of Justice (DOJ) released swaths of files tied to its probe of the disgraced financier.
Farmer, who detailed reporting Epstein’s crimes to the FBI in 1996, said authorities “hung up” on her mid-sentence at the time. A lawsuit she filed against the federal government earlier this year outlines his alleged underground sex trafficking ring, which reportedly involved underaged girls.
She added that at one point she told police that Epstein possessed explicit images of minors and accused him of keeping a “modeling book” of child pornography in his personal safe. Those images included photos of her young sisters, according to the survivor.
“This document proves that if the FBI had simply done its job in 1996, Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation could have been stopped at the outset,” Farmer’s lawyers wrote. “Instead, the FBI’s negligence allowed Epstein to continue abusing hundreds of girls and young women for nearly 25 more years.”
In its release of new files, which was ordered by the Epstein Files Transparency Act that President Trump signed into law earlier this month, the DOJ included Farmer’s report. According to the documents, Epstein threatened to “burn down” her house if she told anyone about the photos.
“I feel redeemed. This is one of the best days of my life” she said in a statement released by her lawyers on Friday. “Of course, it’s mixed with the fact that I’m devastated about all the other little girls like Virginia [Guiffre] who were harmed because the FBI didn’t do their job,”
“I’m crying for two reasons. I want everyone to know that I am shedding tears of joy for myself, but also tears of sorrow for all the other victims that the FBI failed,” she added.
Epstein’s victims have been fighting for years to bring information about his illegal dealings to light. Giuffre — who committed suicide in April at the age of 41 — gave an anonymous testimony to officials about years of assault at the financier’s hands after he was convicted for soliciting prostitution in 2009.
She came out publicly with her accusation in 2015, detailing how she met Epstein at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when she was just a teenager. The president, who has pushed back against efforts to link him to the late offender’s crimes, said he banned Epstein from his resort after learning about the allegations.
The DOJ did not release all of the documents in its probe Friday, which is required by the law. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the delay is related to the need to redact names or identifying information about the witnesses.
The move was panned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who accused the Trump administration of violating the law.
Among the hundreds of thousands of files unveiled to the public on Friday are flight logs of those who were on the financier’s plane; an address book belonging to Epstein, numerous court records from cases against him and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell; hundreds of photographs of Epstein, his associates and his home; Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests; government communications about the Epstein case and more.
The documents also included materials related to the FBI’s 2006 and 2018 investigations of Epstein, as well as its 2019 investigation into Maxwell, as well as grand jury documents from those cases.
Trump, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, was named in many of the files alongside former President Clinton and others.