Two of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims have filed a legal document indicating they plan to sue the FBI for $600 million for allegedly failing to investigate the sex trafficker back in the 1990s.
Last week, an attorney for Maria Farmer and Sarah Ransome shared their notice of claim, which sets up a class-action lawsuit and argues that the FBI’s inaction in looking into Epstein led to his abuse of scores of women and girls. As The Daily Beast reported, Farmer actually flagged Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to New York police and to the feds in 1996, but she said nothing came of it.
“The FBI ignored me, allowing Epstein, Maxwell, and others to continue to grotesquely abuse hundreds of girls and young women for decades,” Farmer said in a statement.
Jennifer Freeman, an attorney for the victims, said the FBI has six months to investigate the claim or reach a settlement.
“Had the FBI done its job hundreds of victims could have been spared,” Freeman said.
An addendum to the notice of claim listed witnesses who “may have relevant information pertaining to the facts stated in the basis for this Claim.” Among them was Google billionaire Sergey Brin, who was subpoenaed in the U.S. Virgin Islands government’s lawsuit against JPMorgan over its ties to Epstein. It also included Brin’s ex-wife, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcick.
Epstein, 66, killed himself about a month after his August 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges.
Long before Manhattan federal prosecutors brought charges, Epstein avoided accountability in a maligned 2008 plea deal signed by then-south Florida US Attorney Alex Acosta, allowing him to plead guilty to soliciting a teenager for sex in exchange for a light sentence lasting just over a year, that let him leave jail to work.
