Since No One Else Seems to Care, Let’s Remember Epstein’s Survivors

They've already told us everything we need to know...

By Audra Heinrichs  |  July 30, 2025 | 5:34pm
Photos: Getty Images In Depth
Since No One Else Seems to Care, Let’s Remember Epstein’s Survivors
From left, Annie Farmer in 2022,  Sarah Ransome in 2021, and Courtney Wild in 2019. Photos: Getty Images

For the last month, the Trump administration’s epic mishandling of the disturbing, decades-long public inquiry for the truth behind Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous client list and his pedophilic criminal enterprise has roiled MAGA. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised to release new information about the case and even claimed she had his client list “on her desk” for review. But by early July, the Department of Justice stated there is no “incriminating ‘client list’” and that Epstein did die by suicide in 2019, prompting much of Trump’s voting bloc to lose its collective mind. Shortly thereafter, Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino threatened to resign, Megyn Kelly suggested Trump blessed a cover-up, and both Bondi and Trump have hit back at any detractors.

In recent weeks, Trump has resorted to claiming that he fell out with Epstein for any number of reasons—most recently that Epstein stole employees (including Virginia Giuffre) from Mar-a-Lago. Meanwhile, photos, footage, and a certain birthday message tell a starkly different story—one that supports much of what Epstein’s scores of survivors have told the public for decades: Trump and Epstein hung out. At parties, weddings, fashion shows, and wherever else the Epstein files most likely suggest.

As everyone from actual journalists to amateur sleuths scrambles for further evidence of Trump’s connection to the prolific pedophile and sex-trafficker, what’s been—once again—lost in this discourse is the hundreds of women who survived the horrors Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their moneyed friends inflicted upon them.

In 2021, the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program was established by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate and paid approximately $125 million to over 150 survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse. Two years later, after more than 100 survivors sued JPMorgan for enabling Epstein (a longtime client), the bank agreed to settle for $290 million.

For years, countless women sacrificed everything to pursue whatever justice they could—before and after Epstein’s death. Without their fearlessness, Epstein would likely be alive, and Maxwell—who, this week, said she wouldn’t testify unless offered immunity or clemency—wouldn’t be in prison today.

So, let’s actually listen to the only people who matter here…

Maria and Annie Farmer

@jenpsaki Maria Farmer, one of the first women to speak out about the abuses of Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, shoots down a derisive statement from Donald Trump’s White House about her allegations about Donald Trump dating back to 1995. Watch the full interview with Maria Farmer and her attorney at MSNBC.com/Psaki #fyp #news #politics #trump #epstein ♬ original sound – Briefing with Jen Psaki

In 1996, sisters Maria and Annie Farmer made the earliest known reports of abuse to the NYPD and the FBI. Maria, a visual artist, met Epstein and Maxwell in 1995 while she was a student at the New York Academy of Art. She was introduced to the pair by Eileen Guggenheim—who was then the dean of the prestigious school (she is now a board member, according to the school’s website). Guggenheim introduced them at Maria’s graduation gallery exhibition under the guise that they were interested in purchasing some of her work.

Later that year, Epstein offered Maria—a rising star in the New York art scene—a position as his “art advisor,” then as his front desk attendant at his New York office. There, she remembers meeting prominent figures like Trump, who once made what she described as a “late-night visit” during her tenure. Maria, who was 25 at the time, told CNN that Trump made a “vulgar comment” about her: “You know, like locker room talk in the ’90s, the way men were, but he made a joke to Epstein, ‘Oh, I thought she was 16.’”

In the summer of 1996, Epstein offered Maria a residency at the New Albany estate of his colleague and billionaire businessman, Les Wexner. The estate was heavily guarded and surveilled and Farmer later claimed she needed Wexner’s wife’s permission to leave. When Epstein and Maxwell came for a visit, they sexually assaulted her, according to Farmer. She was able to flee to another part of the estate and barricaded herself in a room for 12 hours until her father—who drove from their family home in Kentucky to New Albany—picked her up.

During this time, Maria’s 16-year-old sister, Annie, was also introduced to Epstein and Maxwell. In 2021, Annie said that, in 1995, she was hopeful that Epstein was going to provide her academic and scholarship assistance. While visiting her sister in NYC in early 1996, Annie wrote in a diary entry that she, Maria, and Epstein went to see a film together. While in the theater, Epstein touched her inappropriately, but Annie didn’t tell anyone so as not to jeopardize Maria’s employment with Epstein.

“I was trying to come up with excuses to make it seem OK,” Annie told the jury during Maxwell’s child-sex-trafficking trial. Months later, when Annie accepted an invitation to stay at Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico under the guise of helping her get into college, she was assaulted by both Maxwell and Epstein. After the pair took her to see Primal Fear, a film that involves a pedophile priest and the sexual abuse of an altar boy and a teenage girl, Maxwell forcibly gave her a topless massage, while Epstein crawled into bed with her without her consent.

“I just really wanted to get it out of my mind,” Annie testified about how she coped during Maxwell’s trial. Her mother, Janice Swain, and her boyfriend at the time, David Mulligan, both corroborated her account during the trial.

After Maria learned of Epstein and Maxwell’s assaults on her sister, she reported the abuse (and Epstein’s affiliations to Trump, Bill Clinton, and Alan Dershowitz) to the NYPD and the FBI twice—first in 1996, and again in 2006. In May 2025, Farmer filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that it failed to protect her and other victims of Epstein and Maxwell.

Virginia Giuffre

As Trump confirmed on Tuesday, in 2000, the then 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre was working as a locker room attendant in the spa at Mar-a-Lago when Epstein and Maxwell “stole” her away. Maxwell, Giuffre previously revealed, approached her while she was reading a massage therapy manual and offered an opportunity to interview for a traveling masseuse job with Epstein. Giuffre, already a runaway who had escaped physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by a family friend, was eager to earn more money, so she accepted. Said “interview” with Epstein involved going to his Palm Beach estate and giving him a massage as he lay completely naked.

What followed was Giuffre being trafficked for two years to Epstein’s preferred places across the world—from his homes in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City to, most notably, London. Giuffre likened her life during this time to being “passed around like a platter of fruit” among Epstein and Maxwell’s most powerful associates. In 2001, Epstein and Maxwell brought a 17-year-old Giuffre to meet Prince Andrew, whom she later sued for sexual assault in 2021. In a civil lawsuit, Giuffre accused Prince Andrew of rape and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” While Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied the allegations, he ultimately settled with Giuffre out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2022.

After 2002, when Giuffre was able to escape Epstein and Maxwell, she dedicated her adult life to dogged advocacy for fellow sexual abuse and trafficking survivors and defined the public discourse of the case against Epstein and Maxwell. Giuffre not only sued Prince Andrew, but Epstein for sex trafficking in 2009 and Maxwell for defamation in 2015 after she publicly asserted Giuffre was lying about everything. All three suits culminated in settlements.

Sadly, Giuffre’s life would be continuously marred by abuse. In recent years, she accused her husband of 22 years, Robert Giuffre, of domestic violence and withholding their three children from them. Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, told People that in one incident in January 2025, she had been beaten so severely that she was hospitalized for her injuries. In April, Giuffre chose to end her life, leaving behind a message for survivors of sexual violence: “We are not going to go away. Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers need to show the battlelines are drawn and we stand together to fight for the future of victims.”

As Giuffre’s family wrote in a statement following her death, “Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors. Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright.”

Jennifer Araoz

In 2001, while standing outside her New York City high school, Jennifer Araoz was approached by an Epstein recruiter. She was asked if she wanted to earn money by massaging a “kind” and “wealthy” man who lived nearby. She accepted and repeatedly returned to the mansion. Little by little, Epstein manipulated her into removing her own clothing during the massages until one day, he sexually assaulted her.

“He raped me, forcefully raped me,” Araoz told NBC News in a 2019 interview. “He knew exactly what he was doing.” Epstein, Araoz said, ignored her pleas to stop. Araoz never went back.

Following his death in 2019, Araoz was the first survivor to sue Maxwell and three of his employees for enabling Epstein to enact his sexual abuse.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s network of enablers stole from me. They robbed me of my youth, my identity, my innocence, and my self-worth,” Araoz said at the time. “While I am angry that Mr. Epstein’s death means he will never personally answer to me in the court of law, my resolve to pursue justice is only strengthened.”

Courtney Wild

At just 14 years old, Courtney Wild was recruited by a friend to give Epstein massages at his Palm Beach home in 2002. According to multiple reports, Wild was from a lower-income family, and the notion of $200 per massage was reason enough to accept the offer. Like all other Epstein victims, those massages soon became sexual abuse. Further, Epstein prompted Wild to become a recruiter for other girls.Since 2008, Wild has led the charge in demanding answers from federal prosecutors about their investigation of Epstein—more specifically, about the infamous sweetheart deal that same year. Wild was just 20 years old at the time, but her lawsuit against the United States Justice Department exposed the fact that federal prosecutors had struck a secret agreement with Epstein and his lawyers that allowed him to avoid federal charges without informing or involving his many—some of them underage—victims, including Wild. Representing Epstein in the deal were none other than Roy Black and Alan Dershowitz. Notably, Black just died on July 21. As for Dershowitz, the lawyer defended Trump during his 2020 impeachment proceedings.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Wild’s claims that Black and Dershowitz violated the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act when they failed to tell Epstein’s accusers about the deal.

“Without our case, probably no one would have seen the non-prosecution agreement, the secret agreement,” Brad Edwards, Wild’s attorney, told ABC in 2021. “Without that action, nobody would have known just how bad [Epstein] and his other co-conspirators were. No one would have ever understood the whole story.”

Teresa Helm

In 2002, 22-year-old Teresa Helm was working as a full-time student at a massage school in Los Angeles when she met Ghislaine Maxwell via a network of recruiters. Like the others, Helm was presented with an opportunity to train with her under the auspices of becoming a traveling masseuse—only Maxwell never mentioned Epstein.

“What she did was pretty astounding, in the fact that within a day I was convinced that I was in a safe, healthy, wonderful environment, blessed with an opportunity to pursue a career that I had only dreamed of having,” Helm said of Maxwell in a recent interview. She accepted, and was subsequently lured to Epstein’s home in New York City for an “interview.” While there, Helm recalled seeing framed photographs of Epstein and Maxwell posing with (unspecified) presidents. Ultimately, Epstein sexually assaulted her.

Helm has since become a survivor services coordinator at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. In her work toward ending human trafficking, she’s also partnered with various national and international organizations, law enforcement, other community leaders, and legislators.

“We have to shine a light in the darkness in the Epstein-Maxwell case. It is not the first sex trafficking network to exist, but we should make sure that it’s one of the last,” Helm wrote in a recent op-ed. “Every entity or person who participated, enabled or perpetuated Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking crimes must be held accountable.”

Sarah Ransome

@theskimm (Warning: This story mentions sexual abuse, which could be triggering to some. Part 1: Last week, Sarah Ransome released her memoir “Silenced No More: Surviving My Journey to Hell and Back,” where she has come forward with allegations of abuse about Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. We spoke with her about her experience on Epstein’s island between 2006 and 2007. #jeffreyepstein #ghislainemaxwell #news #skimm ♬ original sound – theSkimm

Sarah Ransome was a 22-year-old aspiring fashion student when she met Epstein in New York City in 2006. Introduced by another young woman—who Ransome later learned was a recruiter—who claimed Epstein was a “fantastic” philanthropist who invested in young talent, Ransome was assured Epstein would help her get into the Fashion Institute of Technology. Instead, she was indoctrinated into a cycle of abuse that would span two continents and last nine months.

The recruiter promised Ransom a “girl’s trip” in the Virgin Islands, on which she would meet Epstein. Desperate and penniless, Ransome agreed. On the flight to Epstein’s island estate, she recalled witnessing him having sex with another “girl” on the private plane as the other “girls” pretended to be asleep. When they arrived, her passport and phone were collected, and Maxwell told her to massage Epstein. The first time Ransome did, she claimed he raped her.

“I was just completely traumatized by the rape,” Ransome said in a 2021 interview. “I was very quickly told by Jeffrey that after he raped me if I ever went to the authorities, if I ever told my parents, if I ever told my friends, and if I ever tried to escape, he would kill me…and take out my entire family.” Meanwhile Maxwell, she said, was “the chief orchestrator” who “starved” her and “forced” her into Epstein’s room.

“It makes me sick to my stomach that Ghislaine is claiming to be innocent and claiming to be a victim, because she was the chief orchestrator. She was the engineer,” Ransome said in 2021.

In countless interviews and her book, Silenced No More: Surviving My Journey to Hell and Back, Ransome said she was treated like a “sex toy” at the behest of Epstein and Maxwell during this time. In 2018, Ransome settled a civil lawsuit with Epstein and Maxwell for an undisclosed sum and didn’t provide testimony during Maxwell’s criminal trial in 2021.

Danielle Bensky

@abcnewsaus Danielle Bensky is one of hundreds of women to have suffered abuse by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She is speaking out as the Epstein scandal dogs the White House and grips the United States. #abc730 #JeffreyEpstein #EpsteinSurvivors ♬ original sound – ABC News Australia


Like Ransome, Danielle Bensky met Epstein when she was recruited by a woman in a nightclub in 2004. At the time, the 17-year-old was training as a ballerina at a professional performing arts school in New York City. Bensky’s mother had recently been diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, and Epstein manipulated her to believe that he’d become rich, in part, from neuroscience developments and had connections that could help her mother.

“He had said, you know, I know the top brain surgeons at Mount Sinai,” Bensky told NPR this month. “You know, I have all of this power, and I can use it to help you, or I can make it really difficult for your mother.” In return for help, Bensky was forced to massage Epstein at his home in New York City or recruit other girls to do so. While Bensky said she refused to do the latter, she maintains that she fell into a “cult-like life” in which she lived to obey Epstein’s other demands as he cruelly dangled the possibility of helping her mother.

“I was a young teenager, and I just felt like I had to go along with it for her safety, and so I did,” Bensky told NPR. “And it was – that was when the abuse turned for me.”

Epstein never followed through with connecting Bensky’s mother to preferential treatment. In 2005, after her mother successfully underwent a 19-hour brain operation, Bensky stopped going to Epstein’s home.

Since then, Bensky has become one of the most outspoken survivors against the Trump administration’s apparent cover-up of the abuse.

 “It feels like the current cabinet is essentially erasing our voices after years of bravery and work to find our way out of silence,” Bensky recently told The Times. “It’s actually worse than silencing—it’s rewriting a narrative as if none of us existed in the first place.

She added: “For victims, it isn’t political. Those documents hold and represent the fragmented pieces of our teenage selves that we have desperately been trying to glue back together for two decades.”

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