The former partner of a modeling agent and longtime ally of Donald Trump is recalling her brief interaction with Jeffrey Epstein on his private jet packed with teenage girls.
Amanda Ungaro, a 41-year-old former model from Brazil, said she flew on the late sex offender’s so-called “Lolita Express” from Paris to New York in 2002 along with her then-agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, who acted as a scout for Epstein in the South American nation, according to the Justice Department.
“My agent told me, ‘’We’re going with a couple of friends, a private plane just for us,'” Ungaro told El País in an interview published Sunday. “There were around 30 very young women there, 14, 15, 16 years old. I said, ‘What is this?’ And he replied, ‘Don’t worry.'”
Ungaro, who would later develop deep ties to both Melania and Donald Trump, said she didn’t interact directly with anyone on the flight except the hosts, Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring to sexually abuse minors.
“Amanda, let me introduce you to Jeffrey,” her agent said, she recalled. “He came over and asked, ‘Where are you from? How old are you? Which modeling agency do you work for?’ And he introduced me to Ghislaine.”
Ungaro said she never again saw Epstein, who was found dead in a jail cell as he awaited trial of federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. Brunel, who was arrested in 2020 in connection with the Epstein investigation, died by suicide at a prison in Paris in 2022.
Ungaro, who threatened Melania Trump last week with legal action while vowing to tear down her “corrupt system,” has been vocal on X in a series of since-deleted posts that appeared just hours before the first lady disavowed all ties to Jeffrey Epstein or knowledge of his crimes.
“I have nothing left to lose in my life,” Ungaro wrote last week before deleting the post. “I will tear down the entire system — be careful with me b****.”
Ungaro also referenced her former partner, Paolo Zampolli — a onetime modeling agent who became President Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships — in a post on Sunday sharing an email sent by Epstein in 2011 to an Emirati businessman.
“Be careful, zampoli is trouble,” the email read. “Lots.”
“Investigate the investigator,” Ungaro wrote in the post.
Zampolli, 56, who once discussed buying a modeling agency with Epstein, appears several times in the millions of Epstein documents pertaining to the convicted sex offender that have been released by the Justice Department. But Zampolli has insisted he didn’t have a close relationship with Epstein, appearing far less frequently in the millions of documents than other prominent figures.
“At least I was included, because if you’re not on the list, you’re a loser, right?” he told the Times in a recent interview.
Ungaro has also detailed what she described as a hellish experience while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after being arrested on fraud charges last year and later deported.
Ungaro said police arrested her and her husband in Florida in June after an anonymous tip related to a cosmetic clinic. She told El País she had no prior criminal record and was placed in a cell with “child murderers.”
The ex-model claimed to be “infested with lice” after leaving a federal immigration detention center in Louisiana, where she saw an elderly detainee handcuffed to a wheelchair, she said.
Ungaro, who did not return inquiries by Newsweek seeking additional comment early Monday, alleges Zampolli, the father of her 16-year-old son, leveraged his connections to have her deported, which he has denied.
“Any suggestion that she was arrested and removed for political reasons or favors is FALSE,” DHS officials told the New York Times last month.
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