In 2002 and 2003 Vicky Ward reported a Vanity Fair profile of Epstein. Maria and Annie Farmer told NPR in 2019 that they had both spoken to her on the record, by name, about abuse by Epstein and Maxwell. The piece that ran in March 2003 was a tough look at his money and lifestyle, but without their accounts. [1][2]
Editor Graydon Carter has said Ward did not have enough sources that met the magazine’s legal threshold. Ward says Epstein pressured Carter and that the material was cut. A contributing editor, John Connolly, told NPR that Epstein harangued Carter, that Carter later found a bullet outside his door and the severed head of a cat in his yard, and that Connolly then stopped pursuing the story himself. Those last details rest on Connolly’s account and office lore; no one has tied them to Epstein directly. [1][2][3]
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