Epstein recruiter's FBI note contradicts Melania story — and may have triggered her panic

Melania Trump’s hastily called press briefing last month to emphatically deny any relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein elicited a flurry of speculation about who might be holding information that the First Lady doesn’t want to come out.

A statement provided to the FBI and federal prosecutors by a former model who worked for Epstein as a recruiter for his sex trafficking enterprise appears to shed some light on what Melania is trying to keep under wraps.

The entry in the Epstein files, mentioning Melania and Donald by name, focuses on a man at the center of the modeling industry that brought the Trumps together with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Paolo Zampolli, the modeling agent who reportedly arranged a visa for then-Melania Knauss to come work in the United States, now serves as special envoy for the president for global partnerships under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.

The seamless connection between the models represented by Zampolli — many of them recruited from abroad to work in the U.S. on visas — and the women who became Epstein’s victims and enablers is glaringly illustrated by Adriana Mucinska, a Polish-born model who worked for both men.

Mucinska described meeting Epstein through Zampolli in a 2019 interview with the FBI and federal prosecutors in West Palm Beach, Florida, less than a week after Epstein’s July 2019 arrest on charges of sex trafficking of minors.

Mucinska, also known as Adriana Ross, was described in a 2020 New York Times investigation as one of four “recruiters” who worked under Ghislaine Maxwell to procure teenage girls for massage appointments, which often turned into sexual assaults. Mucinska was reportedly named as a “co-conspirator” and granted immunity from prosecution in Epstein’s widely criticized 2008 plea bargain.

According to interview notes reviewed by Raw Story, Mucinska told investigators that she removed computers from Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, mansion in 2005 at his request.

But before Mucinska knew Epstein, she knew Zampolli.

A typed report of Mucinska’s July 2019 interview in West Palm Beach with two unnamed federal prosecutors and an unnamed FBI agent, compiled in an official FBI document and released in the Epstein files, indicates that Mucinska was interviewed as part of a “proffer agreement,” which typically provides immunity or leniency to an individual with information about a crime in exchange for complete truthfulness.

That FBI report states that an individual whose name is redacted put Mucinska “in contact with an agent named Paolo Zempoli [sic] who worked with ‘ID Models,’" and that “it was organized for” Mucinska “to go to New York to model.” The report states that Mucinska “lived in a model’s apartment because she did not have the funds to pay for her own apartment. The apartment accommodated 10 people and was on the same street as the model agency on Varick Street.” It states that Mucinska “had an affair with the agent” and that “Zempoli [sic] was trying to buy Elite Models with Epstein.”

The next sentence in the typed FBI report of Mucinska’s interview based on her proffer agreement states: “Epstein introduced Melania Trump to Donald Trump.”

That sentence alone would be a bombshell revelation, except that separate handwritten notes from the same interview confuse by giving contradictory information, suggesting that Mucinska told investigators that it was Zampolli who introduced Donald and Melania, as Zampolli has always maintained.

Those notes only reference the person who made the introduction as “he." The notations preceding and immediately following it suggest that the “he” is Zampolli, considering that the document says, “he trying to buy Elite Models w/ JE” and “think he ambassador now.”

Melania has emphatically denied that Epstein played a matchmaking role, and during her April 9 press conference directly stated, “Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.”

But another statement by Melania later in the press conference is clearly disproven by Mucinska’s FBI proffer interview.

“My name has never appeared in court documents, depositions, victim statements, or FBI interviews surrounding the Epstein matter,” the first lady said.

During the press conference, Melania brushed aside an email she sent to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner, on Oct. 23, 2002 — roughly around the same time that Mucinska arrived in the U.S. — as a “trivial note.”

Melania also described the email, which includes the header, “HI!” as a “polite reply.” But the documents released by the Department of Justice clearly show that it was Maxwell who made a “polite reply” to Melania, and that Melania initiated the exchange.

Emails to the Office of the First Lady seeking comment for this story went unreturned.

The FBI referred Raw Story’s questions about the discrepancy between the two documents to the Department of Justice. Emails to the Department of Justice went unreturned.

In the next passage of the typed interview and handwritten notes detailing how Mucinska met Epstein, leading to her eventual employment with the child sex trafficker, there is no contradiction.

The notes indicate that Mucinska told investigators that Epstein visited ID Models during casting auditions for models and flipped through a portfolio, where he saw a photo of Mucinska wearing only swim bottoms.

The next paragraph reflects that Mucinska reported that she was at a nightclub with Zampolli, Epstein and a second unidentified woman. The woman took down Mucinska’s phone number, and Mucinska recalled that either the woman or Epstein later called her with an invitation to have dinner with Epstein.

Zampolli could not be reached for comment for this story, but in a statement to The American Prospect last month, he said, “With regard to Jeffrey Epstein, it is a matter of public record that he had connections within the fashion and modeling sector. He did visit our headquarters; however, any implication of involvement, collaboration, or endorsement is categorically rejected. Any suggestion otherwise is false and will be addressed accordingly.”

Zampolli also told The American Prospect he wasn’t sure whether he remembered Mucinska, but it didn’t matter because “an owner of an agency does not need to know every single model of his agency.”

After accepting Epstein’s dinner invitation, Mucinska told investigators she took a tour of the residence and rebuffed sexual advance from Epstein. As a driver took her home, “she remembered being tearful in the car.”

For reasons unexplained in the interview, Mucinska accepted an employment offer from Epstein in late 2004. Mucinska’s duties included scheduling massage appointments for Epstein. One passage of the report reflects Mucinska telling investigators she “was not sure if the girls who massaged Epstein were underage, but it seemed consensual,” and she “knew it was a sexual massage.”

Mucinska’s time working for Zampolli in New York was sensitive enough that her lawyer advised her during a 2010 deposition for a civil lawsuit brought by one of Epstein’s victims that she should invoke the Fifth Amendment to preserve her right to avoid self-incrimination.

During the deposition, Mucinska disclosed that she worked for ID Models in New York, and that her ex-husband put her in touch with the agency.

When a lawyer for the plaintiffs asked how long she worked with ID Models, Mucinska’s lawyer interjected: “You should invoke with regard to the timeframe you’re talking about now.”

Mucinska has not spoken to the media in the past and could not be reached for this story. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), is reportedly exploring the possibility of calling her to testify.

Mucinska is not the only former model who links Epstein to Trump’s current special envoy for global partnerships.

Another woman, whose name is redacted, described a work arrangement under Zampolli that was strikingly similar to Mucinska’s during an April 2020 interview with the FBI. After signing with ID Models at the age of 18, the woman said she lived in the model’s apartment on Varick Street, according to the document. According to the woman, “Zampolli was ‘sleazy’ and dated models.” She said she stayed at the apartment for about a year before Zampolli “let her go.”

Later, while she was working at the host stand at the Coffee Shop at Union Square in Manhattan, the woman told investigators that a woman with an Eastern European accent approached her and invited her to meet Epstein, whom she described as a “wealthy client.” The document describes a massage session in which Epstein “commanded” the woman to take off her clothes and pressured her into a nonconsensual sexual encounter. Later, the woman told investigators, she “had a mental breakdown, started drinking, and couldn’t function.”

The statement aligns on significant points with an account given by a survivor known as “Kiki Doe” during a 2019 interview for TV’s “Dr. Oz.” In that interview, the survivor described the Coffee Shop as a “hunting ground for recruiters” because most of the staff were models. The “Dr. Oz” interview appears to include no mention of Zampolli, and “Kiki Doe” has said in a separate interview that the model’s apartment where she stayed was on 42nd Street, as opposed to Varick Street.

Mehmet Oz, the host of “Dr. Oz,” now serves as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Trump administration.

Teri Gibbs, the attorney who represented the woman who described working for Zampolli at ID Models, declined a request to put Raw Story in touch with her client or discuss her statement to the FBI.

While Zampolli might plausibly claim he doesn’t remember Mucinska or the Epstein survivor recruited from the Coffee Shop, another former model linked to Epstein will be harder to ignore.

Amanda Ungaro, a Brazilian model who dated Zampolli for almost two decades and has a 15-year-old son with him, arrived in New York in 2002 on Epstein’s private jet. Her modeling agent in Paris, who arranged her flight, was Jean-Luc Brunel, a longtime Epstein associate who died of an apparent suicide in a Parisian prison cell in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape of minors and trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation.

Ungaro, who was deported by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement following Zampolli’s reported intervention in her case, has said she is willing to testify before the House Oversight Committee looking into the Epstein affair.

One day before Melania Trump’s hastily called press conference, Ungaro wrote on X in a post that was subsequently deleted: “Something was clearly wrong, but I am not part of any evil mission involving children. So what did you do, Melania? You tried to involve me, but you failed — because I have character.”