> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Epstein survivor at MoMA protest says Epstein talked up his art world connections - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/epstein-survivor-moma-protest-says-epstein-talked-up-his-art-world-connections/ - Published: 2026-10-08T02:27:09.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T02:27:09.000Z - Description: Activists outside the museum said its financial ties to trustee Leon Black, who denies abuse allegations, make him hard to drop. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Law and Crime, #public-access ****Editor's Note**: Urgent Matter could not attend. Independent art journalist Sarah Cascone did, and shared her audio recordings after [publishing her own article](https://sarahcascone.com/2026/10/maria-famer-epstein-bookmobile-leon-black-moma/?ref=urgentmatter.press), which focused on drawings by survivor Maria Farmer shown in the truck. This story focuses on material that did not appear in her piece. An Epstein survivor who joined a protest across West 53rd Street from the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday said Jeffrey Epstein often talked about his art world connections when she was a young girl wanting to become a ballet dancer. “Jeffrey used the ballet world with me a lot,” said Dani Bensky, who says Epstein abused her in 2004 and 2005\. “I was a young girl who really wanted to pursue ballet, and he often talked about his connections in the art world. I remember feeling held there because I had dreams I wanted to pursue.” The protest called on MoMA to remove Leon Black, the billionaire collector and former board chairman who still [sits on its board](https://www.urgentmatter.press/och-rockefeller-vanish-moma-trustee-page-leon-black-does-not/). “Leon Black was not my abuser, so I don’t have direct connection with Leon Black,” Bensky said. “And so I find that anybody that serves on a board, especially an art board, should be there for the right reasons and have the right intentions and not just be there to abuse power or enable another abuser.” [Add Urgent Matter on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=urgentmatter.press&ref=urgentmatter.press) Black has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct against him. The protest was organized by UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy group, alongside the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Bookmobile, a truck holding micro-printed copies of the Justice Department’s Epstein files. Urgent Matter [previously reported](https://www.urgentmatter.press/reading-room-printed-epstein-files-opens-new-york/) on the May opening of the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room in Tribeca, the project the Bookmobile grew out of. Bensky said Epstein should have been stopped years before he abused her. Farmer, an artist, reported Epstein to the FBI in 1996, Cascone reported. “We started to see this was happening from 1996,” Bensky said. “My abuse happened in 2004\. That should have been stopped for eight years.” “We’ve talked a lot about how the institution is honestly the problem,” Bensky said. “And it goes way deeper than just Jeffrey.” Bensky later became a dance educator. She said she taught upper school students who were her age when she was a young girl being abused by Jeffrey. “So my goal was always to make it safer for those kids,” she said. She said some of the students she taught are now at Cornell University, where a former student sued in September alleging seven fraternity members gang-raped her in 2024 and that only two were expelled. Cornell has said its discipline followed university policy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/IMG_0870.jpg) Survivor Dani Bensky at the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Bookmobile. Photo by Sarah Cascone “I wanted to make sure the grooming was taken out of dance education, only to then give them to a college that they don’t feel safe at anymore,” Bensky said, citing “the power structures and power dynamics there.” “I think that that is the problem, is that when a survivor comes forward, they’re silenced or they’re not taken seriously,” she said. “Or, you know, the belief is, or like the institution’s reputation is more important than the survivor and the human.” “It feels like the system needs an overhaul and we need to find a way to institutional integrity instead of institutional reputation,” Bensky said. “We want Leon Black to be held accountable. And that starts with a prestigious institution like MoMA dropping him,” said Elisa Batista, UltraViolet’s campaign director. “It would be huge for them.” She said Black’s donations make it harder for the museum to remove him. “We understand that they’ve received tens of millions of dollars in gifts from him,” Batista said. “So it’s hard on them to let him go. But they can and they must.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/10/IMG_0866.jpg) UltraViolet’s poster about MoMA board member Leon Black and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, designed by Citlally Ruedas. Photo by Sarah Cascone Black and his wife, Debra, gave MoMA $40 million in 2018 for its expansion, and the museum named the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center after them, The Art Newspaper reported. “Epstein was allowed to get away with what he did for decades, because he had an influential network of influencers, influential institutions like MoMA, that gave him credibility and prestige, and allowed him to get away with this,” Batista said. She pointed to Black’s son, Ben Black, sworn in last December as chief executive of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. “They give each other jobs, they give each other prestige,” Batista said. “And we need to disrupt that.” Batista said she deliberately leaves the allegations out of UltraViolet’s petitions and outreach “because they’re so horrendous.” “I think what shook me most were the accusations of the young woman with autism and Down syndrome who was under 18,” she said. A woman identified as Jane Doe made those allegations in a 2023 federal lawsuit in Manhattan, claiming Black raped her at Epstein’s townhouse in 2002, when she was 16\. Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, called the claims “totally made up, entirely uncorroborated.” In April, U.S. District Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke found that Doe had falsified sonogram images in journals cited in her complaint and that her lead attorney at the firm Wigdor, Jeanne Christensen, “lied repeatedly” about a related case, and ordered sanctions. Clarke declined to dismiss the case as a sanction, writing that the misconduct “need not doom Plaintiff’s claim.” Urgent Matter reported in February that the Epstein files referenced sexual abuse allegations against Black from at least three potential victims, with investigators noting gaps in corroborating evidence. Black told the House Oversight Committee in June, “I have never abused a woman” and “I have never been with an underage woman,” Urgent Matter previously reported. The House held Black in contempt of Congress on September 16 for defying two subpoenas seeking his deposition and his nondisclosure agreements. Black did not seek reelection as MoMA’s chairman in 2021\. A report commissioned by the board of Apollo Global Management, the firm he co-founded, found that year that he paid Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017\. The Senate Finance Committee later put the figure closer to $170 million. Black has said the payments were for tax, estate and philanthropic planning. ARTnews [reported in March](https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/glenn-lowry-leon-black-trustee-jeffrey-epstein-1234777261/?ref=urgentmatter.press) that former MoMA director Glenn Lowry said Black has “certainly been subject to various suits, but he’s also been a very supportive trustee.” Jenna Lowenstein, an organizer with the reading room and Bookmobile, which are run by the nonprofit Institute for Primary Facts, said another reporter asked her Tuesday about a MoMA figure who had called Black a good trustee. She did not name the person. “I said, we’ve been traveling on this tour with over a dozen Epstein survivors, some of whom were victimized as early as 13,” Lowenstein said. “It’s their opinion I care about. And if they’re going to be brave and come out and talk about their experiences and fight for justice, we’ll be with them.” Lowenstein said the MoMA stop was the idea of UltraViolet, which runs an Epstein Accountability Project aimed at others named in the files. “They brought this idea to us and asked if we knew that MoMA still has Leon Black on their board of trustees,” Lowenstein said. “I said, honestly, no f—ing way. And here we are.” The reading room, which Lowenstein said drew 15,000 visitors in New York, 5,000 in Washington and 3,000 in Dallas, was set to open in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday. Bensky said the tour ends in West Palm Beach, Florida, on election night. *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. Please* [*consider subscribing*](https://www.urgentmatter.press/nasa-administrator-questioned-goddard-library-review-emails-show/#/portal) *to support independent arts journalism.*