Ghislaine Maxwell’s victims blasted her ‘very hollow apology’ and said she’s not taking responsibility for helping pedophile Jeffrey Epstein after she was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday.
Annie Farmer, 43, said that the case showed it was ‘never too late for accountability’ and the sentencing was a ‘big victory’ for victims of sexual abuse.
Farmer, however, took issue with Maxwell’s statement following the sentencing, where the British socialite described herself as a fellow ‘victim’ of Epstein and his sex trafficking ring of young girls that she helped contribute to.
‘Her statement felt like a very hollow apology to me,’ Farmer told reporters. ‘She did not take responsibility for her crimes that she committed, and it felt like once more than she was trying to do something that benefitted her and not at all about the harm that she caused.’
Annie Farmer, 43, said she was happy over the sentencing but slammed Ghislaine Maxwell’s apology in court as being ‘very hollow’
Fellow victims Elizabeth Stein (left) and Sarah Ransome (right) also criticized Maxwell and called out anyone who ever aided Epstein
Maxwell (left) was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aiding Jeffery Epstein’s sex trafficking ring. She claimed that she, too, was a victim of the late pedophile
Speaking after the sentence, Sigrid McCawley, Farmer’s lawyer who represents several other Epstein and Maxwell victims, agreed that Maxwell’s statement ‘was not an apology.’
McCawley said, ‘She once again did not take responsibility for her crimes, so that was disappointing,’ but noted that Farmer and the other victims were happy with the sentencing.
Farmer said that she hopes the trial can help empower other victims of sexual abuse to come forward and seek their own justice.
‘It felt very powerful to finally have a chance to speak and have my voice on the record and say how her crimes impacted people and myself,’ Farmer said.
‘Maxwell and Epstein were predators that were able to use that power and privilege to harm countless individuals and for far too long, the institutions that were supposed to be helping the public, were instead helping them.’
Brad Edwards, a lawyer who has fought cases against Epstein for more than a decade, said that Maxwell and Epstein’s famous friends should finally come forward.
Asked if that included Bill Clinton, he said: ‘There’s a lot of people who have a lot of information, they know things, the time is now and if they’re continuing to not speak they’re hurting victims, they’re not helping.
‘There are a lot of people who have a lot of power and prestige and hide behind that and don’t come forward like normal good human beings. They are people that are cowards and I wish they would come forward and maybe [Bill Clinton’ that’s one of them.’
Edwards said that Maxwell’s statement was ‘probably the closest thing she’s come to acknowledgement in her life.’
‘But it was passive acknowledgement, she acknowledged somebody else’s pain but not that she caused it and obviously she was the perpetrator of the crime. To think she’s being charged for something Jeffrey Epstein did is arrogant in and of itself.
‘She was charged for the crimes she did.’
Sarah Ransome, one of Maxwell’s victims who spoke in court, also took aim at Epstein and Maxwell’s powerful friends and enablers too.
Speaking outside court accompanied by fellow victim Elizabeth Stein, Ransome said: ‘For the men that were involved in our sexual trafficking, the employees, the friends, the wealthy friends – you are the reason, you are as bad as Ghislaine’.
During the sentencing hearing, Stein and Ransome delivered their victim impact statement, detailing the grueling abuse they suffered at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell, and the trauma that haunted them for more than a decade.
Ransome said she was only 22 years old when she arrived in New York with hopes of attending the Fashion Institute of Technology.
She said she was targeted by an Epstein-Maxwell recruiter named Natalya Malyshev in a club, who arranged for her to meet the billionaire who allegedly promised to help provide financial support for her to attend her dream school.
‘Epstein and Maxwell were masters at finding young, vulnerable girls and young women to exploit’ Ransome said.
‘However, soon after lulling me and others into a false sense of comfort and security, they pounced, ensnaring us in their upside-down, twisted world of rape, rape and more rape.
‘Like Hotel California, you could check into the Epstein-Maxwell dungeon of sexual hell, but you could never leave. Ghislaine by her own hand, forced me into Epstein’s room to be raped.’
Pictured: A court sketch of Maxwell at her sentencing hearing on June 28, where she apologized for her role in helping Epstein
Ransome, left, delivered additional criticism against all those who helped Epstein, as well as the media for allegedly overlooking her claims in 2016
Ransome shared photos of her in a hospital bed after her first attempt to kill herself in 2008
Ransome is pictured with casts in both legs following her second suicide attempt in 2018
Although Ransome was able to escape for the UK in 2007, she said she began drinking heavily as she was constantly haunted by what happened to her, fearing that ‘someday Epstein and Maxwell would harm me, my loved ones and my family, as Epstein repeatedly told me would happen, if I ever dared to leave.’
The trauma suffocated Ransome to the point where she attempted to kill herself a year later as Epstein was facing trial, and then making another attempt at her own life in 2018, during her case against Maxwell and other Epstein associates.
‘Despite my earnest effort, I have not realized my God-given potential professionally or entered healthy personal relationships,’ Ransome said. ‘I have never married and do not have children, something I always wished for, even as a little girl.
‘I shy away from strangers and have difficulty making new friends because I fear they could be associated with Epstein, Maxwell and the enablers.
‘To this day, I attend AA meetings, but I have had numerous relapses and know that only by the grace of God do I continue to live,’ she added. ‘Maxwell is today the same woman I met almost 20 years ago – incapable of compassion or common human decency.’
Ransome added that she once tried jumping off a cliff while at Epstein’s St. Little James private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
‘[I was] nothing more than a sex toy with a heartbeat and soul used to entertain Epstein, Maxwell and others,’ she wrote.
‘On one visit to the island, the sexual demands, degradation and humiliation ensued me to try to escape by jumping off a cliff into shark-infested waters.
‘I was caught by Maxwell and company moments before jumping. At the time, that extremely risky escape seemed more appealing than being raped one more time’.
Ransome was only 22 when she was taken into Epstein’s sex trafficking sing
Following her 2018 suicide attempt, had pins in her feet (above) to straighten them following the traumatic injury. Ransome said the second attempt came as her trauma resurfaced during her trial against Maxwell in 2018
Stein spoke out about the horrifying ‘trauma’ she suffered at the hands of late billionaire Epstein and Maxwell.
In her statement, Stein recalled being ‘assaulted, raped and trafficked countless times’ during a three-year period after Epstein – who died in prison in 2019 – and Maxwell lured her into their sex trafficking ring by ‘seizing upon her vulnerability’.
She eventually got pregnant at the hands of one of the men and chose to abort the baby. Stein still remains ‘unsure’ who got her pregnant.
‘I was assaulted, raped and trafficked countless times in New York and Florida during a three year period,’ Stein’s statement – seen by DailyMail.com – reads.
‘At one point I became pregnant (by whom I am unsure) and aborted the baby. Things happened that were so traumatizing that to this day I’m unable to speak about them; I don’t even have the vocabulary to describe them.’
Stein recalled her years-long attempts to escape Maxwell and Epstein, having first been lured into their horrifying world when she was a senior at FIT in New York City and working as a sales associate at Henri Bendel.
It was there that she first met the socialite, who introduced her to Epstein at the Pierre Hotel the very same day they met.
‘That night in the hotel was the first of many times they sexually assaulted me,’ she revealed.
According to Stein, when she graduated from college, she desperately tried to ‘leave Epstein and Maxwell and the abuse they perpetrated against me behind as I started my professional life’ with a job at Bloomingdales.
Stein, right, recalled being ‘assaulted, raped and trafficked countless times’ during a three-year period after Epstein lured her in
Four women gave evidence against Maxwell during her trial: a victim known as ‘Jane’ (left) , Annie Farmer, Kate and another woman called Carolyn (right)
Ghislaine is seen kissing Jeffrey on the cheek during a trip to Saint Tropez in France. Many have testified that they believed Epstein and Ghislaine were boyfriend and girlfriend as they operated their sex trafficking ring
The pair are seen sitting in the grass with a dog in this undated photo submitted into evidence by the government
However, she says that Maxwell ultimately tracked her down in the department store in the fall of 1995, recalling how the socialite ‘immediately began befriending me once again’.
‘She immediately began befriending me once again, asking me to go out socially,’ Stein recounted.
‘I tried to resist but eventually she wore me down and I began spending time with them again. They made me feel like they were friends, contemporaries.’
It was then that the pair whisked her away to Florida – and ‘insisted that she stay longer than planned’ which resulted in her being fired from her job at Bloomingdales.
‘Seizing on this new vulnerability, they began trafficking me to their friends. By that time, I was trapped,’ she shared, explaining that Maxwell and Epstein threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone what had happened to her.
‘In the most literal sense of the word, Epstein and Maxwell terrified me,’ she said. ‘They told me that if I told anyone, nobody would believe me and if they did, they would kill me and the people closest to me.
‘After meeting Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it felt like someone shut off the lights to my soul.’