- Appeared in flight logs and was named in new court documents
A top Kazakh-Russian model jumped to her death from an apartment building two years after being flown to Jeffrey Epstein‘s so-called pedophile island as an 18 year-old.
Who was Ruslana Korshunova?
Ruslana Korshunova – a catwalk superstar and one-time face of Nina Ricci perfume – committed suicide at her Wall Street apartment in 2008, aged just 20.
It is now revealed how she traveled to Epstein’s Little St James island on his private Boeing 727 aircraft – dubbed the Lolita Express – shortly before her tragic death.
She was in a cult at the time of her suicide, with her appearance in Epstein’s flight logs raising fears she’d been badly-exploited.
Virginia Roberts-Giuffre was asked by her lawyer whether she knew Korshuova by Brad Edwards, a Florida-based attorney, to Roberts-Giuffre in a May 2011 email unsealed on Thursday night.
Roberts-Giuffre was asked by Edwards, who served as her PR, about the model, who he said had enjoyed a trip to a private island with a wealthy male admirer.
When she boarded plane with them
In June 2006, aged 18, she had flown from New York with Epstein and other friends on his Boeing 727, dubbed ‘Lolita Express’, to his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Little St James.
It is unclear what happened to her once she was there, but Epstein was known to fly girls and young women to his compound, where they’d be sexually exploited by himself and other men.
‘I think it’s a long shot you would recognize her, but read the article I attached and then look at the pictures and see if you recognize her,’ Edwards wrote. ‘I will call you tomorrow.’
Edwards enclosed a link to a Newsweek report on the model’s death.
Roberts-Giuffre replied: ‘I am so sorry to hear the news of Ruslana, and my condolences are with her family and friends.
Roberts-Giuffre’s 2015 defamation case
‘I can say that I have never had any meetings with her, sorry not to be of any help there.’
The exchange was revealed on Thursday, with the unsealing of a trove of documents from Roberts-Giuffre’s 2015 defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s right-hand woman.
The documents were unsealed this week after the Manhattan judge ruled there was no longer any justification for keeping the files secret.
When did Epstein die?
Epstein died in August 2019 in jail awaiting trial, and Maxwell is now in prison, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Korshunova, born in Kazakhstan to Russian parents, and scouted after the fall of the USSR.
A model scout saw a photo of her in an airline magazine, in an article in which she described her teenage quest to learn German.
She was flung into a jet-setting, glamorous life, modeling alongside Lily Cole and Jessica Stam, and earning legions of fans.
But she was bruised by being jilted repeatedly by rich men, who dazzled her with their wealth then left her.
How she met Epstein
It is not clear how she met Epstein, but Maxwell was known to recruit glamorous young women to his entourage.
Epstein also promised some young women for help with their visas if they came to work with him. The Kazakh-born beauty’s visa status is not known.
Epstein and his friend and Palm Beach neighbor, Donald Trump, would attend parties where models were gathered.
In November 1992, Trump threw a raucous party with NFL cheerleaders at his Mar-a-Lago estate, and invited Epstein.
In 1997, the pair were photographed at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York City.
Another of Epstein’s friends was model scout Jean-Luc Brunel.
He died by suicide in February 2022, awaiting trial for sexually abusing children. Korshunova was living in Manhattan’s Financial District by the mid 2000s.
