Boies Schiller Flexner attorneys are suing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein for at least three women who claim they were sexually abused by the late Palm Beach financier after being recruited into his alleged sex-trafficking network in New York.

The lawsuits filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York include claims for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress by women who said they met Epstein and his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, from 1995 to 2002.

Two of the women, sisters Maria and Annie Farmer, were the subjects of New York Times reporting in August, which identified them as the first to report abusive behavior by Epstein at his Manhattan townhouse. A widely criticized 2008 plea deal eventually derailed any federal prosecution in favor of a lenient state sentence in Palm Beach County.

Maria Farmer's complaint said Epstein hired her to purchase art for him, though her job responsibilities soon shifted to "focus on monitoring and keeping records of who entered Epstein's New York mansion." She said Epstein took interest in personal details about her family and arraigned to have her 16-year-old sister Annie flown to New York.

While there, Maria Farmer said Epstein groped Annie in a movie theater and eventually flew the girl to his New Mexico ranch, where he assaulted her. In her own lawsuit, Annie Farmer said Maxwell, a British socialite accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein, pressured her to have physical contact with Epstein and both adults participated in the abuse under the guise of a massage.

The sisters are represented in the litigation by New York partners David Boies and Joshua Schiller and Fort Lauderdale partner Sigrid McCawley of Boies Schiller.

Maria Farmer's suit claimed "Maxwell was regularly bringing school-aged girls to the mansion" in New York, and they were always escorted upstairs. Maria Farmer, who was 26 at the time, said she was told the girls were interviewing for modeling positions with lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret and was unaware of Epstein's sex-trafficking conspiracy at the time.

The complaint included a reference to former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who she said visited the mansion "on a number of occasions" and "would go upstairs at the same time the young girls were there."

While the filing did not contain any explicit allegations of wrongdoing by Dershowitz, it represents the latest salvo in a feud between the retired professor and Boies Schiller, which represents Epstein accusers in a range of civil litigation.

Until recently, Boies and McCawley represented Virginia Giuffre, who claimed Dershowitz defamed her through his strong denials of forced sex. Dershowitz filed counterclaims against Giuffre, and Boies sued Dershowitz last week, claiming falsely accusations of extortion.

Dershowitz has repeatedly denied allegations he had sex with anyone in Epstein's orbit. On Tuesday, he said Maria Farmer's report of seeing him at Epstein's mansion in 1995 was "categorically" false.

Dershowitz said he visited Epstein's home for the first time after Maria Farmer ended her connection to the financier in summer 1996. He said the claim would work to undermine her credibility moving forward.

"It just shows that Boies is more interested in going after me" than in helping his own client, Dershowitz said in a brief phone interview.

Boies had no comment by deadline.

A third plaintiff, Teresa Helm, on Tuesday said she was recruited by a fellow massage-therapy student in 2002 to interview for a traveling masseuse position with a wealthy couple in New York. After speaking with Epstein employee Sarah Kellen, Helm said she was flown to Manhattan, where she was to stay at a 66th Street apartment, which housed "many of the models and other young women" Epstein was abusing.

Soon after, Helm said, Epstein sexually assaulted her as she tried to leave the room after he pushed his foot into "her intimate parts" during a foot massage. Helm said she was so traumatized by the encounter that did not finish massage therapy school with the same certification that she initially set out to achieve and returned to Ohio shortly after the alleged assault.

All three lawsuits named Darren Indyke, a longtime attorney for Epstein, and Richard Kahn, who were named executors of Epstein's estate following his August suicide in a New York jail, where he was held on a sex-trafficking indictment. Indyke and Kahn are named solely as executors of the estate

While Epstein's death in federal custody ended the criminal case against him, plaintiffs have sued his estate for civil damages — a process experts have said could take years to complete.

The Justice Department is continuing to investigate whether any of Epstein's associates and employees were linked to the alleged trafficking conspiracy.

Read more: