CNN Exclusive: Roza Gilles was an 18-year-old model when Jeffrey Epstein first abused her — while he was serving jail time.
RAPE Roza Gilles’ Testimony About Jeffrey Epstein
The CNN article recounts the story of Roza Gilles, a former model from Uzbekistan, who is publicly testifying for the first time about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein in 2009, when she was 18 years old.
Key points:
She also discusses her recovery process, her new life in the Midwest, and her still-complicated relationship with the broader movement of survivors advocating for transparency about Epstein’s co-conspirators.
Gilles had been recruited by the modeling agency MC2, run by Jean-Luc Brunel (an associate of Epstein’s), who put her into debt as soon as she arrived in the US through exorbitant visa and rent fees.
Epstein offered her a receptionist job at the Florida Science Foundation, a foundation created just before his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Despite his sentence, Epstein benefited from a controversial « work-release » program that allowed him to leave jail for most of the day. According to several testimonies, he continued to abuse young women during this period, sometimes in the presence of Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies who were supposedly there to monitor him.
The article details the conditions of this program, negotiated by former US attorney Alex Acosta, and the sums Epstein paid for the presence of these officers.
Gilles describes years of repeated assaults, both in Palm Beach and after her return to New York, as well as the distress she felt upon discovering that her name and her correspondence with Epstein had been made public when the « Epstein files » were released this year.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/20/politics/roza-gilles-jeffrey-epstein-victim-abuse
