Trump Allegedly Offered Swiss Beauty Queen US Visa, NYU Admission to Silence Rape Claim, Epstein Report Says

Donald Trump repeated offers of a US visa and a New York University place to a Swiss beauty queen while swearing her to silence over an alleged rape in 1993, according to a report by House Democrats.

Beatrice Keul, a finalist in the 1992 Miss Switzerland contest, said Trump renewed the offers months later in a phone call to Switzerland. She turned him down.

Her account is one of 11 in a staff report on Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein, released by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Monday, 26 October. The White House denies the allegations.

The Offers Came Before and After the Alleged Assault

Keul, who the report says was 24 and working as a model and in Swiss finance, travelled to the US in November 1993 for the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant, a contest for women aged 16 to 22 in Atlantic City and New York. The event's organiser, Jill Harth, had recruited her.

Trump first approached her at a press luncheon at the Plaza Hotel, which he then owned. He offered to arrange a US visa, telling her a man named 'Paolo' would 'take care of that,' and pledged to secure her admission to NYU. The report names him as Paolo Zampolli, an Italian modelling agent and longtime Trump associate.

Epstein approached her shortly afterwards, introducing himself as 'Jeffrey, Don's best friend.' 'We organize many parties with Don,' Epstein allegedly told her. 'Flights, accommodations, you don't have to worry about anything.'

Later that day, a Trump representative showed Keul to a suite upstairs. There, the report alleges, Trump grabbed her from behind and raped her, tearing her dress and leaving her bleeding and bruised. Keul called it 'brutal'.

Afterwards, she said, Trump repeated the visa and university offers and made her promise to keep quiet. 'The show must go on,' he told her, according to the report.

Her passport had been taken on arrival, though the report does not say by whom, and she did not ask for it back for fear of signalling distress. According to the report, she returned to Switzerland after the contest and skipped a Trump-sponsored pageant in Hawaii weeks later.

Report Ties NYU Promise to Epstein's Methods

In January, committee Democrats wrote to NYU after survivors told them Epstein had offered university admission and tuition to lure young women and 'ensure their silence'. The letter said he offered NYU educations to at least six girls between 1993 and 2004.

Keul described the NYU offer in 2024, more than a year earlier, which the report's authors say means she could not have known of the pattern.

Citing FBI records, the report also alleges that Zampolli arranged US visas for young models before they met Epstein. Zampolli, who has publicly denied involvement and faces no Epstein-related charges, served as the State Department's special envoy for global partnerships until his dismissal earlier this month over a dispute with the department's deputy secretary, POLITICO reported.

Keul's Account Has Shifted Since 2024

Keul first went public in October 2024, telling the Daily Mail that Trump groped and kissed her in a hotel suite but backed off when she resisted. A footnote in the new report acknowledges that she previously said she talked Trump down when he tried to rape her. It does not explain the change or say whether she reported the incident to police.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said, 'None of these allegations are true,' adding that Trump had been 'fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein.' A Justice Department spokesperson dismissed the report as a 'last-ditch effort by House Judiciary Democrats to mislead the public.'

None of the claims has been tested in court, and Trump faces no Epstein-related charges. According to the report, five of the 11 women directly accuse him of rape or sexual assault in Epstein's company or presence. They include Harth, whose 1997 lawsuit accused Trump of assaulting her at Mar-a-Lago; former model Stacey Williams; and Katie Johnson. Most of their allegations were already public.

Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the committee's top Democrat, called for an independent special counsel to investigate Epstein's co-conspirators and what Democrats describe as a Justice Department cover-up. 'The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard,' Raskin said. The report landed eight days before the 3 November midterms.

Earlier this month, Keul told Swiss broadcaster SRF she has received threats since speaking out. She and other women have formed a group, 'Survivor Sisters', which is pressing for transparency and weighing collective legal action.