Jeffrey Epstein raped me 200 times: Models tricked into working for paedophile billionaire speak for first time - 'We were slaves'

When Simona (not her real name) met Jeffrey Epstein in New York, she was a 20-year-old model with big dreams.The financier introduced her to industry giants, and the young woman from eastern Europe genuinely believed he wanted to help her achieve her goal of becoming a supermodel.Simona didn't know it at the time, but Epstein was making promises and using his contacts in high places to lure aspiring supermodels just like her into his abusive orbit.The elaborate ruse was enabled by a web of talent agencies and model scouts, who provided the billionaire with access to hundreds of vulnerable young women, often immigrants to the States who didn't have a support system in their new country.'We were there for the purposes of serving Epstein. Slaves, who also have been raped,' Simona told the BBC World Service in their new documentary: The Model Trap: Exposing Jeffrey Epstein's Network.During her two years knowing Epstein, she says she was raped around 200 times and he controlled every aspect of her life.'It was almost like a cult,' said Anka (not her real name), who met Epstein in her early twenties in Paris. As well as being a victim of rape for years, Anka was coerced into bringing more women into Epstein's world.'We're bringing more and more victims on a regular basis, like the survival of the cult would depend on it. He had this obsession with having more and more women to abuse,' she said. Photograph of Jeffrey Epstein with two unidentified young women, released by the US Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files A photograph of two unidentified women, released by the US Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files Epstein receives a head massage in a group of unidentified women, in a photograph released by the US Department of Justice as part of the Epstein filesFollowing the release of the Epstein files by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in January, the scale of the financier's business dealings with major talent agencies was revealed.The files show how Epstein in 2005 gave $1million (£751,000) to MC2 Model Management, an international modelling agency cofounded by French model agent Jean-Luc Brunel.MC2's US president at the time, Jeff Fuller, now runs another US model agency called The Source Models.The late modelling scout Daniel Siad appears almost 2,000 times in messages with Epstein, the first dating back to 2004.The scout and photographer went on to establish a number of fashion ventures, including in Dubai, with one of his businesses launched with a $25,000 loan from Epstein.According to the BBC, he carried out nearly 100 scouting trips on Epstein's behalf in 21 countries in total, including Latvia, Morocco, South Africa and Brazil, and was paid almost $100,000 in total by the financier.Epstein booked almost 200 flights from Paris to New York, and more than 60 from there to West Palm Beach, where he lived.He also booked nearly 400 flights between Paris and eastern Europe, and more than half were to and from Moscow. The passengers names are redacted 'to protect women believed to be victims of sexual abuse,' according to the DOJ.Throughout the documentary, lawyers and survivors argue that following his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, Epstein created a 'new scheme' to carry out his abuse.The system relied on using scouts and agencies to gain access to young models, who would then become his personal assistants and exposed to his sexual abuse.Sigrid McCawley is the lead lawyer for more than 100 of Epstein's victims. She said: 'We really saw a shift in how Epstein facilitated his trafficking operation. Once he was arrested, he typically then started to try to recruit primarily from eastern European countries, and modelling was one of his main sources.''It was a very sophisticated operation,' she added. Roza was 18 when she was first sent to Epstein's Palm Beach home by MC2 Model Management's US branch Pictured: The late modelling scout Daniel Siad, who appears almost 2,000 times in messages with Epstein, the first dating back to 2004In January, hundreds of women had their names mistakenly published by the DOJ in the Epstein files, violating their right to privacy.One of those women was Roza Gilles from Uzbekistan, who for years was referred to in court files as 'Jane Doe', protecting her anonymity.For the first time, she has told the story of how she was systematically raped by the financier for three years, leaving her with years of depression, anxiety and PTSD.'This was not just one person. This was a network of individuals,' she said. Having grown up poor, she began modelling aged 15 and was motivated to become successful in order to give her parents a better life.At 18, she signs with up-and-coming US agency MC2 but struggles to book work with the company, and falls into a spiralling debt of $20,000 by the end of 2009.Fuller tells her he has a solution, and sends her to two photoshoots at Epstein's Florida beach house. At the time, in 2009, the convicted sex offender was serving an 18-month jail sentence for abusing a minor, after being investigated for allegations made by 30 underage girls.He was allowed to work each day from his West Palm Beach home, however, where many of the offences took place.Shortly after the second photoshoot, Epstein offered her a job as his assistant, and Gilles' agency moved her to its Miami office, just an hour from Epstein's property.But a week into her new role, the abuse began.'I was in so much pain. Being assaulted for the first time in your life, it's an out-of-body experience, I just froze,' she said.'Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted felon, for raping an underage girl, and he was on house arrest, while raping me.'I knew that reporting a sexual assault, reporting a rape, with this individual, won't work. Why would it? Nobody's going to listen to me: an immigrant, an 18-year-old girl from Uzbekistan. My life is going to be ruined.'After escaping from Epstein, Gilles relocated to Madison, Wisconsin. She married, became a four-time national CrossFit champion for Uzbekistan, and co-owns a fitness facility, Pat’s Gym, where she is an athlete and coach. MC2's US president in 2009, Jeff Fuller, now runs another US model agency called The Source Models Roza Gilles from Uzbekistan was for years was referred to in court files as 'Jane Doe', protecting her anonymity For the first time, Gilles has publicly told the story of how she was systematically raped by Epstein, leaving her with years of depression, anxiety and PTSDAnka was introduced to Epstein via model scout Siad in Paris, who told her there was a businessperson who had connections with multiple top agencies.Siad said he'd be able to organise an interview for her that night, at Epstein's luxury property on the Foch Avenue, overlooking the Arc de Triomphe.'Epstein seemed like that person you get to meet once in your lifetime, who changes the course of your life,' she said.'He promised to help me with my US visa, to have a meeting with the top agencies. I was just one of many young women who he played.'She said every time the financier was travelling to Paris, there would be a list of women Siad would be preparing for him.The model spent years under Epstein's control, and recalls at least 20 women who the scout brought to him.'We were controlled through immigration, through finances, through housing. There was no escape for a woman like myself,' she said, calling it an 'eco-system of abuse'.She was flown by Epstein from Paris to the US, where she signed with MC2 Miami - the same agency as Gilles.'I don't think the public understands enough that after 2008, after his arrest, Epstein created a new scheme. He was looking for the so-called "assistants". It was not a real job - it was a very elaborate scheme he created in order to continue abusing young women in their early twenties, but we all looked like teenagers,' Anka said.She said she was made to perform massages for the billionaire, during which he would abuse her.'There was no way of saying no to him. Because if he really became mad at you, you wanted to die. We were abused and controlled and manipulated.'During one period of time, Anka was one of seven assistants working for Epstein, tasked with introducing him to more young girls. She said one assistant would always have to be present if a new woman was arriving, to convince her everything was normal.If the assistants failed to recruit more victims, Epstein would 'double down on our physical and emotional abuse', she said. The financier routinely told people he 'wanted three different girls a day', lawyer McCawley said.In total, more than 1,000 women were abused by Epstein. Epstein routinely told people he 'wanted three different girls a day', lawyer McCawley said The late modelling scout Daniel Siad appears almost 2,000 times in messages with Epstein, the first dating back to 2004 According to the Epstein files, former model agent Ramsey Elkholy exchanged more than 1,000 emails with the financier, beginning in 2007According to the Epstein files, former model agent Ramsey Elkholy exchanged more than 1,000 emails with the financier, beginning in 2007.Elkholy now describes himself as an anthropologist, musician and producer, founder of the band Monotronic, but in the 2010s he was working as a model agent. Throughout their exchanges, he uses hyper-sexualised language to describe women, with emails saying 'she's 23 but oozes sex', 'Epstein please just try her in bed' and 'you will want to tear her clothes off'.In other messages, he describes a woman as a 'business-minded sex machine' and as a 'body built for carnal pleasures'.In one email, he speaks to Epstein about a particular model, writing: 'She will be in London if you want to import her.' He visited the billionaire's New York mansion around a dozen times, where Anka met him.According to the BBC, Elkholy tried to connect 34 women with Epstein.One was allegedly 18 and still in school, referred to in email as a 'Czech girl'. Elkholy tried to sign her as a model, while recommending her to Epstein. According to the files, there were plans to send her to Florida. She refused, and had no idea she was being discussed in the files.'The scouts were really critical, because they were the ones who were identifying the type of woman Epstein liked,' lawyer McCawley said.'There were so many red flags. Ramsey Elkholy and Daniel Siad, both of whom brought women to Epstein, should be investigated.' Former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson alleges she was sexually abused by the late model scout Daniel SiadIn the documentary, former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson alleges she was sexually abused by the late model scout Siad very early on in her career in France.At the time, she was 20, and he introduced himself to her with a different name, Daniel Goldberg.For decades, Karlsson could find out little information about this Daniel Goldberg. It was only late last year – once the first batch of the Epstein files were released – that a journalist called her with the news. They had identified the scout, but his name was Daniel Siad. A month after discovering him in the files, she became the first woman to give evidence to the French authorities about Siad, accusing him of rape and trafficking.Two women had already alerted French police back in 2019, following Epstein's second arrest, that Siad had trafficked them to the financier.But Siad was never questioned.On July 20 this year, the 69-year-old was discovered dead in his home in Colombes, northwest of Paris. Prosecutors said he died of a heart attack.Karlsson has accused the French authorities of a 'denial of justice' after alleging that Siad raped her, and is taking the state to court for missed opportunities to investigate him. Files released by the DOJ included numerous disturbing images of Epstein with young womenSimona, a former model from eastern Europe, met Epstein aged 20 when she was already signed with a model agency in New York.He offered to introduce her to his 'good' friend Faith Kates, who was the head of Next Management, one of the world's biggest model agencies. She stepped down from that senior executive position in December 2025, but is still legally listed as a director of the company.'I thought he genuinely wanted to help young women,' Simona said.She alleges that during the meeting, Kates suggested she undergo plastic surgery and sent details of a surgeon to Epstein.'I think Faith played the role of bait, because the role these people played was never to get the women what they needed,' she said.Simona claims that after the meeting, the convicted sex offender convinced her to stop modelling.She became an assistant for him, just like Anka and Gilles. The DOJ files reveal Epstein asked Kates to meet an additional five models, though it is not clear how many of these meetings took place. Not all of these meetings were about signing the women, however, with at least one email showing Epstein explicitly asking Kates not to 'take her', but letting her have 'five-ten minutes' of time on a Monday in May 2009.Agreeing to the meeting, Kates wrote back: 'Of course... I'll see her Mon Xoxo.'Like many other victims, Epstein flew Simona out to his private US Virgin Islands retreat in the Caribbean called Little St James.He called his home away from home Little St Jeff's, but locals had other nicknames for his secluded getaway, including ‘Island of Sin’, ‘Paedophile Island’, and 'Orgy Island'. Months before the disgraced financier was found dead in his New York prison cell in August 2019, he was still whisking young women away to the island.Employees who worked on the airstrip on St Thomas - from where he would helicopter or ferry guests over to the remote Little St James - shared an inside joke about their billionaire visitor.‘Every time he landed or took off, it was always brought up. We’d always be joking: “How many kids are on board this time?”’ an anonymous worker told Vanity Fair.The same worker compared spying on the secretive financier to witnessing a ‘serial killer in broad daylight’, because Epstein sauntered without shame, surrounding himself with underage girls despite being on the island’s registry of sex offenders for a decade. 'Did we have a nice time? No,' Simona said about being on the island.She described how Epstein would rape her in the massage room, where she would 'immediately disassociate herself from her body in order to endure' the abuse.'[That] somebody who is like your father, who is your mentor, who wishes you well, could do such painful things,' she said.Modelling agent Brunel was found hanged in his prison cell in 2022 after 14 months ⁠in ​pretrial detention on charges, which he denied, ​of raping minors and sexual harassment.Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial ​for sex trafficking.Lawyers for Faith Kates told the BBC: 'Jeffrey Epstein was a master manipulator... Ms Kates was one of those grossly misled by Epstein. Had she known then what she - and everyone else - now knows, she would have never associated with him.'They added she had never asked a model to have plastic surgery.Ramsey Elkholy told the BBC: 'I completely reject any allegation that I knew of or facilitated abuse of any kind… At the time, I had no knowledge of any abuse and I knew only his own [Epstein's] account of his 2008 [legal] case, which I misguidedly believed.'Fuller has previously told US media he 'did not know Roza was going to Mr Epstein's home', and 'was unaware of the abuse she now describes'.He said his knowledge of Epstein's conviction was 'general at the time; I didn't follow it closely'.Sen. Zellnor Myrie is attempting to give law enforcement greater powers to investigate Epstein's enablers - including those who knew about criminal activity, and those who should have known.His Trafficking Survivor Recovery and Accountability Act is an attempt to bring the disgraced financier's associates to justice.'When this bill becomes law, if you are an individual that was leading an agency, you were sending models to Epstein, and you knew what Epstein was doing, or you should have known what he was doing, you will be held accountable,' he told the BBC.