Maria Farmer has claimed she warned FBI about Epstein in the 1990s, but her complaint was ignored

Jeffrey Epstein was the subject of a complaint to the FBI as early as the mid-1990s. Photo / US House Oversight Committee

Newly released United States Justice Department files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, included a 1996 complaint to the FBI about the disgraced financier allegedly possessing and distributing “child pornography”.

That’s about a decade before a federal investigation was launched into his predatory behaviour with minors and young women.

The complaint was brought by Maria Farmer, who worked for Epstein in the 1990s and has for years said that she told police and federal investigators that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had sexually assaulted her.

The FBI had never publicly acknowledged her original report.

The complaint states that Farmer, whose name is blacked out throughout the document, “took pictures of her sisters 12 and 16 years for her own personal art work” and that “Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers”.

The document indicates Epstein threatened that if the complainant, Farmer, told anyone about the photos, “he will burn her house down” and that Epstein asked Farmer, then in her mid-20s, “to take pictures of young girls at swimming pools”.

The complaint is stamped with the date September 3, 1996.

Farmer said in a statement that she feels “redeemed” that the new tranche of files released by the Justice Department includes documentation of her original complaint.

“This is one of the best days of my life. Of course, it’s mixed with the fact that I’m devastated about all the other little girls like Virginia [Giuffre] who were harmed because the FBI didn’t do their job,” Farmer said in the statement.

“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.”

The FBI declined to comment.

Farmer has said she met Maxwell and Epstein when she was a graduate student in Manhattan in 1995, and that Epstein later hired her.

Farmer claims that in the summer of 1996, she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell at the Ohio estate of billionaire retail executive Leslie Wexner.

Farmer has also said Maxwell sexually abused her sister Annie, who was 15 at the time, on a massage table at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch.

Lawyers for Farmer say she told the FBI in August 1996 she observed explicit images of children inside Epstein’s home, a “modelling book” of child pornography that was kept in Epstein’s safe and Epstein’s theft of the nude images of her sisters.

Farmer filed a lawsuit this May seeking damages from the federal government for what her lawyers say was federal authorities’ negligence regarding her claims related to Epstein and Maxwell.

After speaking to local and federal authorities in 1996, Farmer said no one appeared to act on her reports until 2006, when the FBI knocked on her door to interview her about Epstein.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida - one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18 - and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Under a secret and controversial arrangement, the US Attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute Epstein for federal crimes related to allegations of sex with underage girls.

- Shayna Jacobs, Sarah Ellison and Jonathan O’Connell contributed to this report.

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