Ghislaine Maxwell Is Fighting to Get a Teenage Epstein Victim’s Diary

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Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team wants to get their hands on the diary of an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s—even though Maxwell isn’t mentioned in the diary at all.

On Tuesday, prosecutors pushed back against the request for the diary, which belongs to “Minor Victim-2” in the federal indictment against Maxwell; her attorneys have identified her as Annie Farmer. Farmer has said in a 2019 lawsuit that Maxwell exposed her breasts and groped her during a topless massage at Epstein’s infamous ranch in New Mexico when Farmer was 16. Maxwell let Epstein watch, according to the lawsuit.

Farmer didn’t write about Maxwell in the diary, which is partly why Maxwell’s legal team believes it could clear British former socialite’s name, as one of her attorneys wrote in a late April filing. They also want to have its authenticity analyzed.

“Inspection of the entire journal is necessary to establish whether the journal is authentic and complete and whether or not spoliation has occurred,” Maxwell’s lawyer, Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, wrote. “This examination requires the services of a qualified forensic document examiner and cannot be performed in the middle of trial without a significant disruption in the proceedings.”

But prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in the Tuesday filing that Farmer stopped writing in the diary shortly after she met Epstein. Moreover, they added, there’s no reason to doubt the diary’s authenticity.

The request for the diary is, prosecutors wrote, nothing short of a “fishing expedition” by the defense. 

Farmer’s older sister, Maria, has also said that she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell. Maria Farmer reported the alleged abuse to the New York Police Department and the FBI, according to the 2019 lawsuit.

“To the extreme detriment of Maria and Annie—and also countless other victims who came after them—authorities ignored Maria’s reporting efforts and took no action,” the lawsuit reads.

Maxwell has denied wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to several sex trafficking and perjury charges. She’s currently detained at a Brooklyn jail, despite repeated, failed bids for bail. Her legal team has spent months arguing with the feds over the conditions of her confinement, alleging at various points that jail guards have abused her, wrongly confiscated her legal papers, and checked on her at 15-minute increments throughout the night—preventing her from being able to sleep. (In a filing last week, Maxwell’s attorney suggested that the lack of sleep may have something to do with a black eye Maxwell had mysteriously acquired.)

Prosecutors have insisted that Maxwell remains healthy and is treated similarly to other people incarcerated at the jail.

Maxwell was originally scheduled to go to trial this summer. However, her case was recently pushed back, since prosecutors filed a new, expanded indictment against her.