The FBI had Jeffrey Epstein's name in 2005 and left a rape victim waiting fifteen years for a phone call.
Now 32 women have dragged that silence into federal court.
What the FBI did when one of the most famous men in America picked up the phone for her is the part they never wanted in a courtroom.
Playboy Playmate Told Hefner She Was Raped and Trafficked by Epstein
23-year-old Audra Lynn Christiansen was living at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills and was terrified.
The former Miss October 2003 had just told Hugh Hefner something devastating – that Jeffrey Epstein had raped her and trafficked her to Stanley Ho, the Macau casino billionaire known as China's "Godfather of gambling."
DOJ files released last year put Ho's identity in Epstein's own handwriting – a 2011 email to friend Boris Nikolic described Ho as "the richest man in Hong Kong" who "owns most of Macau" and separately called him "the leader of the Chinese mob."
She didn't go to the police herself.
Instead, she went to Hugh Hefner because she believed his connections and "clout" could get the FBI to actually listen.
Court documents filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida confirm Hefner contacted the bureau "multiple times" on Christiansen's behalf in 2005.
The FBI did nothing.
No investigation. No follow-up call. No visit to the Playboy Mansion to take a statement from a woman who said she'd been raped and trafficked across international lines.
The bureau finally reached out to Christiansen in October 2020 – fifteen years later – after Epstein was already dead.
FBI Ignored Epstein Sex Trafficking Tips for Nearly 30 Years
The 32 victims suing the federal government aren't arguing the FBI missed a few signals.
They're arguing the FBI knew – and knew for decades – and chose to do nothing while Epstein built a global trafficking operation.
The first documented FBI tip came in 1996, when artist Maria Farmer reported Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the bureau directly.
The FBI hung up on her.
Between 1996 and 2005, multiple additional reports came in.
The FBI didn't open a formal investigation into Epstein until May 2006 – a full decade after the first warning.
Even then, the bureau cut off that investigation "prematurely," according to a letter sent to former FBI Director Christopher Wray and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland.
When the FBI finally tried to get this latest lawsuit thrown out in June, the agency told the court it was "not required to investigate every complaint" it received.
The victims' attorney wasn't buying it.
"The fact that the FBI is trying to utilize procedural technicalities to try to avert accountability and responsibility for its failures to properly investigate Jeffrey Epstein for over 20 years should be deeply concerning to all," Jordan Merson told the New York Post.
How the Larry Nassar FBI Settlement Gives Epstein Victims a Legal Path
The FBI buried credible tips about USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar for over a year while he continued to abuse young athletes – and that failure cost the federal government $138.7 million, the largest payout of its kind in FBI history.
Epstein's victims' attorneys are running the same legal argument: the FBI had a binding obligation under its own rules to investigate documented tips about child sex trafficking.
The Nassar settlement proved the government pays when the bureau ignores those rules.
Christiansen's case alone had everything – a named victim, a named rapist, a mob-connected billionaire documented in Epstein's own emails, and Hugh Hefner personally on the phone with the FBI.
And the FBI still waited fifteen years to make a phone call.
The case remains before the courts.
Sources:
- Gabrielle Fahmy, "Hugh Hefner repeatedly called the FBI on Jeffrey Epstein after Playboy Playmate was raped, lawsuit details reveal," New York Post, August 14, 2026.
- Jordan Merson, Merson Law PLLC, "Jeffrey Epstein Lawsuit Against FBI: Why Survivors Demand Accountability," mersonlaw.com, April 12, 2026.
- Ryan Goodman, Siven Watt and Joshua Kolb, "Timeline of Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell Law Enforcement Failures (1996-2025)," Just Security, August 18, 2025.
- Courthouse News Service, "Eight Epstein victims sue FBI over failure to investigate sex abuse tips as early as 1996," courthousenews.com, September 25, 2024.
- Fox News Staff, "FBI's $139M settlement with Larry Nassar victims breathes life into Epstein accusers' lawsuit," Fox News, 2024.