The first time the artist Maria Farmer says she heard the name of fashion billionaire Leslie Wexner, she recalled, was when her employer, financier Jeffrey Epstein, told her, Les loves me. Hell let me do anything.
Farmer, then 26, had just been invited to create two large-scale paintings for the upcoming film As Good As It Gets, starring Jack Nicholson. Epstein offered Farmer an unexpected location to do the work in the summer of 1996: an expansive country home in New Albany, Ohio, located amid 336 acres of land owned by Wexner and guarded in part by sheriffs deputies employed by the longtime chief executive of Victorias Secret and The Limited.
It was there, Farmer said in an affidavit she submitted as part of an Epstein-related lawsuit, that she was molested by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
In a series of interviews with The Washington Post, Farmer, 50, spoke publicly for the first time about Wexner and his wife, Abigail. She never met Leslie and says she spoke to Abigail only by phone while at the New Albany home. But she says she holds him responsible for what happened to me because the alleged assault happened at the hands of one of his closest advisers on property Farmer says was monitored by Abigail and the Wexner security team. She says that she was held her against her will at the property by Wexners security staff after her alleged assault, until her father came to pick her up.
Farmers mother, father, sister and a friend all said in separate interviews that they heard similar accounts in 1996 from her.
While Farmers allegations against Epstein have been widely documented, her experience in New Albany and the questions it raises about the Wexner familys relationship with Epstein have been little explored. Wexner was the only known clients of Epstein, who, authorities said, killed himself in a New York City jail this summer. The allegations have roiled Wexners image and business, and the board of his company, L Brands, has hired an outside law firm to conduct a review of the relationship.
Wexner has said he was unaware of Epsteins alleged crimes and cut ties with him as soon as he found out about them. A Wexner family statement said neither the 82-year-old Leslie nor Abigail knew who Farmer was before she made her allegations. The Wexners declined to be interviewed.
Mr. and Mrs. Wexner have condemned Jeffrey Epsteins abhorrent behavior in the strongest possible terms and severed all ties with him in 2007, Thomas Davies, a spokesman for the Wexners, wrote in a statement. We dont know what Epstein told Ms. Farmer about the Wexners. And while we dont know with whom Ms. Farmer may have spoken, who may have claimed to be Mrs. Wexner, it was not Mrs. Wexner. Before the recent news coverage of Ms. Farmer, Mr. and Mrs. Wexner had no knowledge of her, never met her, never spoke with her, and never spoke with Mr. Epstein or anyone else about her.
Maxwell could not be located for comment. Her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Farmers interaction with Epstein dates back to the mid-1990s, when Epstein was active in the New York art scene and employed Farmer to answer the door at his Upper East Side townhouse. He presented the New Albany home as an alternative to her small walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village.
For two months in the summer of 1996, Farmer stayed in a country house that Wexner had deeded to Epstein four years earlier, according to property records. She had an Ohio drivers license, reviewed by the Washington Post, listing the address of the nearby Wexner mansion.