The Journal - Maxwell Trial Day 10
“I felt sick to my stomach.”
When Annie Farmer came to the stand this morning, she turned her head to get a look at Ghislaine Maxwell, sitting next to her defense lawyers wearing a light brown turtleneck.
Farmer was wearing a flowery blue blouse and black glasses. Maxwell didn’t return the look.
Farmer, 42, told a story to the jurors that won’t be new to anybody who’s followed her involvement in various cases trying to hold Maxwell and Epstein accountable. That was part of what made her testimony so convincing - it has essentially never changed.
Lara Pomerantz, back after falling ill yesterday, led the examination for the government. “Do you see anyone in this courtroom who has ever given you a massage?” she asked.
“Yes,” Farmer replied.
Pomerantz then told Farmer to describe her, and Farmer pointed her out as the woman wearing a brown sweater.
“I was 16 when Ghislaine Maxwell gave me a massage.”
She explained how she had met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell when she was just 16 years old. Farmer was in high school, working hard and worrying about money for college. Farmer’s mother, Janice Swain, 71, testified later in the day. She said that their plan before Epstein to pay for college was through student loans.
Annie met Epstein through her sister, Maria Farmer. Maria was 9 years older than her, and lived in New York City. She had just finished grad school, and was working as a painter. She was also working for Jeffrey Epstein.
“I understood he was his boss,” Swain testified. She remembered talking with Epstein on at least six phone calls. She remembered him talking about Maria’s art career and talent. And then, in December of 1995, he called offering to buy Annie a plane ticket to come visit Maria for Christmas.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity for the sisters to be together,” Swain said.
Annie remembered looking forward to seeing her sister - “affording a ticket was a big deal” - and she was interested to meet Jeffrey Epstein who might be able to help her out with college.
She flew alone, and stayed in her sister’s apartment. Annie met Epstein for the first time with Maria. They went to his house ahead of seeing a production of Phantom of the Opera, which Epstein had bought them tickets for.
“I had never been in a private residence that had been so big,” Annie remembered. Epstein asked her about her plans after high school, and they talked about colleges. Epstein mentioned that UCLA was a place that he liked, and where he had good connections at. They talked about the idea of her going on an international trip over the summer to help with her college application. Epstein said he would help her. He was down to earth and dressed casually, Annie remembered.
“He was very nice,” she said.
After seeing Phantom, they met one more time to go see the film 12 Monkeys. Maria came with them again. In the theater, Annie sat next to Epstein on one side, with Maria on the other.
Then at one point in the darkened theater, Epstein started caressing her hand, then holding her hand. She was sitting with her legs crossed. Epstein started rubbing the bottom of her shoe, then her foot, and then her leg.
“I felt sick to my stomach,” Annie told the court. She was surprised, nervous, and anxious.
Whenever Epstein would turn to interact with Maria, he would stop. When the movie ended he said goodbye.
Annie didn’t tell her sister what happened, she said, because she knew how protective she was and how upset she’d get. Because Epstein was Maria’s employer, Annie told the court, “I decided not to say anything.” She didn’t want to jeopardize Maria’s career.
At this point the government entered one of their most convincing pieces of evidence into the record. These were a couple of journal entries from Annie Farmer’s diary, which she kept periodically. On January 7th, 1996, Annie wrote about her trip to New York City. “I was on a high” from the trip, she wrote. “I felt really comfortable there.”
She also recorded her first time at Epstein’s house. “We went to Jeff’s house and had champagne with him,” she wrote.
She also wrote about her experience at the movies. “It was a little weird,” she wrote. “One of those things that’s hard to explain.”
“We were holding hands (not weird, normal + fine),” she went on. “I just didn’t want to have any weird feelings about it…[it] wasn’t that weird and probably normal…I think he is just a relaxed guy and likes to flirt, or was being fatherly or something.”
“I know this sounds like me trying to justify him doing something weird, but it isn’t,” she wrote.
Then, in the spring of 1996, Annie learned from her mother that she’d be visiting New Mexico.
“I was not eager to go to New Mexico,” Annie said.
What convinced her? Being told that Maxwell would be there. She hadn’t met Maxwell on her trip to New York, but she believed that, because Maxwell was Epstein’s romantic partner, she wouldn’t try anything.
Swain, Annie’s mother, told the court that she remembered talking with Epstein on the phone about the trip.
Epstein told Swain that it was going to be a get together for 20-25 talented students, where they could talk about their college plans. She asked him if he had enough space for all of them. He said that he had cabins on the property which could fit all of them. And she asked whether it would be boys and girls too. When he replied that it would be, she asked if there would be anybody chaperoning the girls.
“He said his wife Ghislaine would be,” Swain remembered.
Swain seemed uncomfortable testifying - she looked regretful and strained.
Swain said that she never talked with Maxwell, but got the impression that Maxwell had picked Annie up from the airport.
Annie remembered being picked up from the airport in Santa Fe by a driver.
When she got to the property, she was the only one there. She stayed in a residence with Maxwell and Epstein. She remembered finding this a little odd, that two adults would want to spend that type of time with a teenager, but it also made her feel special.
Maxwell wasn’t surprised to see Annie at all. “She seemed to know who I was and was excited to meet me.”
Annie tried talking with Ghislaine about school. She was writing a paper about British authors and remembered bringing it up with Ghislaine.
They all went into town to shop together. Annie testified that they went to a natural food store where Ghislaine bought her a henna hair cream. Then they went to a western wear store and tried on cowboy boots. Ghislaine bought her a pair of pointy black leather boots.
Later, they went to go see a movie. “I wasn’t eager to,” Annie said. “But because Maxwell was there I thought it would be different.”
They saw Primal Fear, and once again Epstein sat between the two women. “It was very similar to the first time,” Annie remembered. But “unlike in New York he didn’t seem to be concerned with hiding this behavior.”
Maxwell also showed her how to massage Epstein’s feet one night. “I watched what she doing and did what she told me…I felt very uncomfortable, I did not want to be touching his feet.”
Later, Maxwell asked Annie if she’d ever had a professional massage. As she hadn’t, Maxwell said she would be happy to give her one. Maxwell set up a massage table, and had Annie get undressed. She started rubbing her, and then had her roll over onto her back.
“She pulled the sheet down, and exposed my breasts, started rubbing the top of my chest and upper breasts…when she pulled the sheet down I was frozen…I wanted so badly to get off the table and have this massage be done.”
The door was open, Annie remembered, and though she couldn’t see whether or not Epstein was outside, she remembered having the sense that he could see her.
Another morning, Epstein bounded in playfully to her room and said he wanted to cuddle. He came behind her and pressed his body onto her. At one point in her testimony, Annie mimed rubbing her own arms with a shudder to show how he’d put his arms around her.
After Annie came back home her mother noticed that something was up with her, but Annie would never talk about it. Swain remembered Annie saying “I don’t want to talk about it and I’m not going to let it ruin my life.”
The prosecution also called David Mulligan, Annie’s high school boyfriend, to corroborate her testimony. They started dating in the fall of 1996, when they were both 17 years old. He told the court that Annie had told him about her experiences with Jeffrey Epstein.
“It first came up when we were beginning to be physically affectionate with each other,” he recalled.
And he testified that Annie had told him Maxwell had touched her on her breasts, and made her feel fearful, and awkward, and helpless. She told him that she didn’t have the courage to speak up and jeopardize her sister’s opportunities with Jeffrey Epstein.
On cross examination, Maxwell’s defense attorney Bobbi Sternheim asked him how he still remembered these conversations from 20 years ago.
“I would say they were very memorable and formative moment in our relationship,” Mulligan said.
“They led to very emotional conversations.”