Press Telegram - Rep. Robert Garcia, survivor Annie Farmer call for full Epstein files release in Long Beach

A group of elected officials gathered at the Long Beach Civic Center on Monday, Sept. 29, to call for the federal government to release the Epstein files in their entirety.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, who is also the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has been leading the charge to hold the Department of Justice and the Trump administration accountable for their promises to make the case files on the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffery Epstein public.

“This is not an issue that we’re going to drop,” Garcia said, standing alongside members of Long Beach’s City Council and its Commission for Women and Girls, state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, and Annie Farmer, who said she survived sexual abuse at the hands of the late Epstein, co-conspirator and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell when she was teenager.

Though the pairs’ crimes date back decades and the federal government’s investigation into them has been ongoing for years, public interest in the Epstein files has increased in recent months after President Donald Trump reneged on his campaign promise to release the information and the Department of Justice said in July it wouldn’t make any more information about the case public.

The House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the federal government’s handling of Epstein and Maxwell earlier this year, and has since taken several actions to attempt to force the government to comply, including issuing various subpoenas and seeking depositions with former law enforcement officials involved with the investigation.

While some new information has come to light as a result of these efforts — including the release of the notorious Epstein 50th birthday book, which allegedly included a note from Trump, though the president has since denied its authenticity — the federal government has continued to drag its feet in complying with the demands.

“The president has the power to bring justice and transparency by releasing the full files, and we’re asking him to just live up to his promise during the campaign — which was to release the full files. That is all that we want,” Garcia said. “The victims and the survivors have all demanded the same thing, and it’s time for them to be able to move forward with their lives and get the answers that they deserve.”

Farmer, a Long Beach resident, has been fighting for justice for herself and the countless other victims for decades.

“(Epstein) flew me to New Mexico under the guise of meeting to plan for an educational trip he would pay for me to take, and it was there that he and Maxwell abused me at just 16 years old,” Farmer said Monday. “I was quite confused by what happened. I didn’t understand it, and I told no one, until a few months later when, horrifically, my sister was sexually assaulted by them.”

Farmer’s sister, Maria, was the first to blow the whistle on Epstein and Maxwell. She reported the crimes to the FBI in 1996 — but, Annie Farmer said, there was no follow up by law enforcement on the report.

It wasn’t until about a decade later, in 2005 — when police in Palm Beach, Florida, began an investigation into Epstein’s crimes after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported that she was molested at his mansion — that the truth about his sex trafficking operation began to come to light.
The Farmer sisters were approached by the FBI in 2006, and asked to be witnesses in the case against Epstein.

“We were told he would finally be held accountable,” Farmer said. “My fears were confirmed when after my interview with the agents, they shared that there had been dozens of young women in Florida that had also been harmed by him. It sounded like there was a very strong case against him.”

But the FBI’s investigation never resulted in federal charges. That’s because Miami’s U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta approved a secret agreement that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to lower state charges instead of facing federal ones with heftier prison sentences. In 2008, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in jail on the state charges. During his sentence, as part of a work release program, he was allowed to leave jail during the day to go to his office.

“The resulting charges and the very light sentence,” Farmer said, “were a betrayal of all of us.”

Epstein was again arrested in 2019, years after more of his and Maxwell’s victims began to tell their stories and seek justice through the legal system. But he would never make it to trial — instead, he died by suicide in his jail cell in August of that year.

Maxwell was convicted of several sex trafficking charges for helping Epstein abuse underage girls in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022. Farmer was one of four women who testified at Maxwell’s trial, she said.

“It was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done,” she said, “but I did so because I believed it was important for myself and for so many others that she was held accountable.” Farmer said.

Maxwell has since been relocated from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security facility in Texas, home to other high-profile criminals, including Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. She has also since submitted an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Maxwell’s lawyers have floated the idea of a pardon from Trump.

“Then this summer, in quick succession, we learned of the DOJ’s unexplained change of heart about releasing the Epstein files,” Farmer said. “We learned of (Maxwell’s) interview by (Deputy Attorney General) Todd Blanche, her unprecedented prison transfer, our president’s refusal to rule out giving her a pardon. As whispers about that possibility grew louder, I found myself once again feeling betrayed and outraged and unable to focus on anything other than this case.”

So Farmer, once again, has taken up the task of advocating for her own justice, as well as justice for her sister and the countless other women who were subjected to sexual abuse at Epstein’s and Maxwell’s hands as children.

“If the government won’t do it on its own, it’s up to us — the survivors — to demand accountability, demand transparency, and to hold us law enforcement responsible for failing to do their jobs,” Farmer said. “I truly believe that this issue is not going away, and we are more emboldened than ever, and we will get the answers that we demand.”

Garica, meanwhile, said that while the release of the Epstein files is crucial for government transparency and accountability, it’s also necessary to help Americans trust that if they experience abuse, law enforcement will do something should they choose to report it.

“There are so many people across this country that are seeing how we react to this to know if they can actually share their story, or if they can trust their government, or if something happens to them — will someone be there to actually seek justice for them?” Garcia said. “That is why this story matters so much.”