Girlfriend or vic?
Recorded final chat with Epstein could yield clues
The last person to speak on the phone with Jeffrey Epstein had no idea the accused sex trafficker she’d loved deeply for years was about to kill himself, the Daily News has learned.
The multimillionaire sex offender’s final recorded phone call from Metropolitan Correctional Center was with Karyna Shuliak the night before Aug. 10, when the 66-year-old perv was found hanging in his cell, a source familiar with the matter said. “When she hung up the phone she was not under the impression Epstein was suicidal,” the source said.
That description echoes one by Epstein attorney Reid Weingarten, who said during a hearing in Manhattan Federal Court that his legal team “did not see a despairing, despondent, suicidal person” prior to the shocking suicide.
Nonetheless, a prosecutor from the Southern District of New York sought to review a recording of the final conversation with Shuliak, seeking any hidden meanings that could only be understood by the duo that had been together for four or five years, sources said. Shuliak declined due to concerns about her own possible legal exposure, according to a source.
Three sources did not consider Shuliak a victim of Epstein. Rather, the woman in her 30s presented herself as Epstein’s girlfriend and believed he sincerely loved her, the source familiar with Shuliak said. She was never exposed to any sex trafficking by Epstein, who was a master at compartmentalizing his life, the source said.
Shuliak was with Epstein in Paris before he returned to the U.S. and was arrested at Teterboro Airport in July, according to the source. She learned of his suicide while in
Belarus.
Records show that Shuliak married an alleged Epstein victim who is a U.S. citizen in 2013. Their divorce was finalized in July 2019, weeks after Epstein was arrested. A lawsuit filed by a different Epstein victim against his $577 million estate alleges that the perv forced her into a sham marriage to keep a victim who wasn’t a U.S. citizen in the country.
Sources said Shuliak’s marriage, which is not the subject of any lawsuits, followed a similar pattern.
“Jeffrey Epstein’s international sex trafficking ring harmed an incomprehensible number of girls and these sham same-sex marriages served a basic and important purpose for Epstein’s trafficking operation because they enabled Epstein to get citizenship for girls that he wanted to keep in this country,” said Sigrid McCawley, an attorney representing Epstein victims.