Abused, betrayed, and now threatened

When Marina Laserda told the world that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14 years old, the threats began almost immediately.

In September, she and other women who accuse Epstein participated in a press conference demanding the release of Epstein’s files. “She’s going to be killed,” someone wrote that day under a YouTube video of the report about Laserda. “She really should have kept quiet. Rest in peace.”

The harassment intensified when Laserda's name appeared at least 46 times in uncensored Justice Department documents a few months later. She was called a liar and a prostitute online who deserved what happened to her. Her 12-year-old daughter was bullied at school by other students, asking her if she was Epstein's child.

Today, Laserda lives with her daughter in a gated community and sleeps with a gun on her nightstand. “I’m afraid someone will break into the house,” she said. “I’m paranoid all the time.”

Laserda is one of 23 women who accuse Epstein, whom Reuters identified as victims of threats, harassment and intimidation by trolls, haters and others - some after speaking out publicly about the abuse, others after their identities were revealed in Epstein's Justice Department files, and in some cases both.

The harassment takes many forms. Strangers take photos of the women's homes. Unidentified cars stop in front of their homes and drive away at high speed when approached. Some women receive threats of violence, including calls from people who claim to know where they live. Several say they no longer leave their homes alone.

The Justice Department said it took steps to protect victims’ information after releasing millions of pages of investigative files related to Epstein in December and January, and that it acted quickly to correct redaction errors when they were brought to its attention. Asked for this report about how the files were handled, Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassare said that “no victim should face harassment, threats or intimidation after coming forward.” She added that the department “is not responsible for the backlash directed against victims who voluntarily disclosed their identities long before the files were released.”

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was fired by President Donald Trump in April, acknowledged “editing errors” in testimony before Congress on May 29 about the Justice Department’s handling of Epstein files. She said she had delegated responsibility for releasing the documents to her then-deputy, Todd Blanch.

“We made mistakes and we admitted them,” Blanche, now acting attorney general, testified before a congressional committee on May 19. “Of course, every time we release the name of a victim that shouldn’t have been released, we as the Department of Justice have failed.”

For 23 women interviewed by Reuters, the agency had access to documents about their allegations against Epstein and confirmed that they had received compensation through court-approved funds or settlements. All said the harassment deepened the harm they say Epstein caused them, placing them at the center of a long-running national criminal scandal fueled by politics in Washington and their own efforts to hold those responsible accountable.

Lawmakers from both parties have dragged some of these women into the political fray. They have been invited to high-profile events, including the annual State of the Union address, to pressure the Trump administration over its handling of the case, demand the release of additional files and demand greater accountability for Epstein's associates.

The women who accuse Epstein face a difficult decision: going public can draw attention to abuses that have long gone unpunished, but it can also expose them to further harm. At least 10 women interviewed by Reuters said they now own weapons - including guns, tasers, pepper spray or knives - or use armed security for protection.

Almost all of the women described living in a state of constant alert. Four said they reported the threats to police, but those cases did not lead to prosecution because authorities were unable to identify the suspects or determine that a crime had been committed. One case remains under active investigation, police said. Other women said they chose not to contact law enforcement, citing distrust rooted in what they saw as previous failures to act on their allegations of abuse.

In the case of Laserda, a YouTube spokesperson said the threat to “kill” her was removed after Reuters requested comment from the video-sharing platform.

The motives of those threatening women range from victim blaming to conspiracy theories. Women have come under attack across the political spectrum - sometimes for voting for Trump, more often for criticizing his handling of the Epstein files or suggesting he is covering up information.

Some victims accuse them of seeking money or attention, calling them prostitutes or con artists. Others, especially those from Russia or Eastern Europe, have been called foreign spies. Trolls question why some women returned to Epstein after being abused; others say the claims by women who were 18 or older when they were victims are unfounded.

Even women who were minors at the time were subject to criticism. Some who harass them suggest that they should have understood the risks, or blame their parents for not protecting them.

In January 2022, while undergoing radiation for Hodgkin's lymphoma, she received a call from a woman who said she lived in California and owned a large arsenal of weapons. "I know where you live," Farmer recalled the woman telling her.

At the same time, the women have been praised for speaking out publicly and exposing Epstein's long-hidden abuse. Women's rights groups, lawmakers from both parties and others have called them brave.

Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to prostitution-related charges, including pimping an underage girl, as part of a plea deal that saw him spend 13 months in prison. He was rearrested in July 2019 on federal charges of trafficking for sexual exploitation involving underage girls in New York and Florida, and died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide. At least 200 victims have been paid about $425 million through a compensation fund and settlements with his estate and banks accused of facilitating the abuse. His accomplice, Gillian Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence.

In at least 6.250 cases, names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and photographs appeared unredacted in the Justice Department's release of Epstein files, revealing the identities of at least 177 women - in some cases multiple times for the same women, said Brittany Henderson, whose Florida law firm represents at least 250 women who accuse Epstein.

Reuters could not independently verify that number. However, the Justice Department said in a February letter to judges overseeing the Epstein and Maxwell cases that it had removed “several thousand documents and media files that may have inadvertently contained personally identifiable information about victims.”

Blanche said in testimony on May 19 that the department removed the documents “the second” victims or their attorneys reported them, and that attorneys worked “24 hours a day, seven days a week” to “ensure that we resolve every single issue.”

Yet even after the errors were pointed out, personal information remained visible, sometimes for months, according to a Reuters review of files and emails sent by the women's lawyers to the Justice Department.

Multiple errors

In the summer of 2004, Danielle Benski was 17 years old and attending the New York School of Performing Arts, hoping for a career as a ballerina, when, she says, she was invited to Epstein's Manhattan mansion to work as a paid masseuse.

At first there was nothing sexual, but that soon changed, she said. When she told him that her mother had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, Epstein threatened to use his influence in New York hospitals to interfere with her mother's treatment if she did not comply with his sexual demands. She said she took the threat seriously and continued to visit him, and that the abuse lasted about a year.

In April 2021, Benski came out publicly, identifying herself as a victim of Epstein. However, it was not until the Justice Department began releasing Epstein's files, including unredacted documents in which she was identified, that she began receiving threats of violence.

In December, her name and phone number appeared on one document, and her full name on another. In January, one document listed her full name and date of birth; another contained her name, date of birth, phone number, as well as her home and work addresses. That document was available for about three days before the Justice Department removed it, her lawyer, Sigrid Mekoli, estimated.

While picking up her son from school in February, Benski saw that she had received a message on Facebook from a man from New Mexico threatening to rape and kill her.

The man's Facebook page had photos of him holding an assault rifle. She immediately thought of her son. "I just want to make sure he's safe," she said in an interview.

Benski, who is 39 and now works as a dance teacher and choreographer, blocked the sender. Reuters contacted the man, Robin Clark, through his Facebook page to ask about the message. He replied: “I’m sure she’s been through some horrible shit that I can’t even imagine, but she’s not the only victim and she chose the wrong path.” He then told the reporter to “fuck off” and blocked her. Other attempts to contact Clark were unsuccessful.

Benski reported Clark's message to Facebook in June. The account was removed for violating Facebook's policies, a spokesperson for parent company Meta said.

In March, a new release of Justice Department files brought Benski's name back into the public eye, this time in a statement she gave to an FBI agent in 2008. In it, she described how Epstein masturbated while she massaged him. When she stopped, he became angry, told her to leave, and paid her $300, she told the FBI.

McCauley, her attorney, said she notified the Justice Department on March 7 and reached out again nine days later, after the department had not redacted the file. Only then was it redacted, she said.

In April, Reuters reviewed the Justice Department's website and found that Benski's last name remained visible in two other places. Reuters informed her of this, and her lawyer contacted the department again. The information, her lawyer said, was redacted a few days later.

“It puts survivors in a state where you feel broken,” Benski said of the Justice Department’s redaction errors. “I’m always much more cautious now and I’m always looking over my shoulder.”

Another woman, who has never publicly identified herself as one of Epstein's accusers and who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said she noticed a stranger taking photos of her house in March after her name and those of her family members appeared unredacted in Epstein's files.

After Henderson, her lawyer, alerted the Justice Department, it took about a month for the mistake to be corrected, the woman said.

"Unbearable"

In April 2019, Maria Farmer went public with her testimony about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell. She said she was inspired by Virginia Giuffre, who eight years earlier had given up her anonymity to accuse Epstein of pimping her out to powerful men.

Giuffre committed suicide last year. Farmer, now 56, said she herself considered ending her life because of what she described as constant harassment, threats and public attacks after she spoke out. “I wanted to not have to live anymore,” she told Reuters. “Who could survive the absurdity of being a whistleblower in a case, only to be blamed for the crimes they reported?”

Farmer's story began, as she described it, with a seemingly ordinary encounter with Epstein.

In 1995, while studying for a master's degree in fine arts at the New York Academy of Art, Farmer met Epstein at an art show and sold him a painting for half the price after he offered to help her with her career. The following year, he hired her to acquire art for him. At the time, she was 26 and fresh out of college, and she found art while also working as a receptionist at his Manhattan mansion, keeping records of visitors.

In the summer of 1996, Epstein arranged for her to travel to Ohio to work on an art project. While she was there, Farmer claims, Epstein and Maxwell took her to a bedroom and sexually assaulted her. The abuse extended to her family, Farmer said. In an affidavit, she alleged that Epstein also sexually abused her 15-year-old sister Annie in New Mexico.

She told authorities about the abuse she suffered and what she believed was a broader system involving minors that she witnessed at Epstein's mansion. According to notes on an FBI complaint form from September 1996, she said Epstein threatened to "burn down her house."

In her testimony to investigators, Farmer urged agents not to just investigate Epstein, she told Reuters. She said she remembered seeing prominent figures in Epstein's circle, including Trump and former President Bill Clinton. She did not testify that any of them had committed any illegal acts, she said, but she wondered what they were doing with Epstein.

An FBI agent hung up on Farmer in the middle of a conversation, she alleged in a lawsuit she filed last year. Investigators failed to act on her allegations or open a substantive investigation, she said.

Soon after, she left New York, changed her name and moved several times. She lived under assumed names in South and North Carolina after discovering that Maxwell had been tracking her movements, according to Farmer's lawyer. Epstein and Maxwell threatened to kill her if she spoke to police again, Farmer said.

“We could shoot you twice in the back of the head,” she recalled Maxwell telling her.

In the months leading up to Epstein's arrest in 2019, Farmer came forward publicly, filing an affidavit detailing her allegations, in the hope that prosecutors would act.

Farmer said she believed that speaking out might force authorities to hold those responsible accountable, at least to some extent. Instead, she said, it ruined her life. Strangers attacked her online, calling her a “pathological liar” and a “fraudster” who “was never a victim of Epstein” and who should be prosecuted and sent to prison. She changed a dozen phone numbers and email addresses after her accounts were hacked multiple times.

"It was so cruel and unbearable," she said of the reactions.

One event, she said, still stands out in her memory. In January 2022, while undergoing radiation for Hodgkin's lymphoma, she received a call from a woman who said she lived in California and owned a large arsenal of weapons. "I know where you live," Farmer recalled the woman telling her.

Strangers were posting her personal information and home address online. In February, after someone shared a photo of her house on the social network X, Farmer no longer felt safe. “I had to leave,” she said. “You feel hurt.” She soon moved and put the house up for sale. Her elderly mother, who lived nearby, now drives an hour to visit.

“I watched it completely destroy her,” said her sister Annie, 46. “It really changed the way she relates to the world.”

For Farmer and some other women who have accused Epstein of sexual assault, the harassment did not diminish with time. They reshaped their lives to cope with it.

Laserda, a woman who now sleeps with a gun by her bed, said she is always on guard. Identified as “Minor Victim 1” in Epstein’s 2019 federal indictment for human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, she was 14 when she says she was abused after meeting the financier in 2002.

To make it harder for strangers to find her, she changed her name on property records.

"I'm absolutely glad I broke my silence," she said. "But the consequences - it's pure paranoia."

Prepared by: NB