Model From Uzbekistan Says Epstein Sexually Abused Her While Wearing an Ankle Monitor — and With an Officer Next Door

Jeffrey Epstein raped and abused 18-year-old Uzbek model Roza Gilles for years during his controversial 2008 work-release sentence in Palm Beach, Florida, she has told CNN. According to her narration, the convicted financier was wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor and an officer was next door when the first assault took place.

Her account, published on 20 July 2026, is the fullest public version of her story to date. It exposes fresh detail about how Epstein continued preying on young foreign women even while he was meant to be in custody, and how uniformed law enforcement was sometimes metres away.

A First Day That Became a Nightmare

Gilles arrived in Palm Beach in summer 2009 for what she believed was a weekend receptionist job. Instead, she walked into Epstein's 14th-floor office at the Florida Science Foundation, saw a woman massaging his feet, and noticed a black plastic band with a blinking light around his ankle. When she asked what it was, he laughed and told her to remove her shirt.

'I froze,' she said. It was the first of years of rape and abuse she endured. She later learned the device was an ankle monitor and that Epstein was serving a 13-month sentence for soliciting a minor under a widely criticised plea deal, negotiated by then-US Attorney Alex Acosta.

A Work-Release Programme With Few Real Limits

2021 review found his work-release hours expanded steadily from twelve hours a day to seven days a week, with only eight hours daily spent inside the jail. His release conditions barred contact with minors and required the ankle monitor until July 2009. Yet two other women, unnamed in CNN's report, say they were abused in that same office, describing coffee, muffins and naps on a conference-room futon between assaults. One recalled the monitor's alarm sounding, sending him outside to reset it.

Off-duty deputies were stationed at his office to log visitors, paid for by Epstein's foundation: roughly £100,900 ($128,136). A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report later found no violations among the logs reviewed (though they were later destroyed) and concluded no criminal conduct occurred among sheriff's staff.

Gilles said one such encounter, at Epstein's West Palm Beach mansion, briefly gave her hope. She recalled a deputy in the kitchen one morning, and thinking that her ordeal might finally end.

'I thought to myself: thank you, this is going to be the day that this all stops,' she said. Instead, she says she watched the officer chat warmly with Epstein and leave without acknowledging her presence, a moment she says convinced her no one would intervene.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office did not respond to a request for comment.

Trapped By Debt, Recruited by a Convicted Trafficker

Gilles's path to Epstein began in 2008, when French agent Jean-Luc Brunel offered her a contract backstage at a Uzbekistan fashion show. Epstein was later revealed to be a significant financial backer of Brunel's agency, MC2 Model Management. Brunel died in a French prison cell in 2022 after being charged with rape and sexual assault.

Gilles says the contract immediately left her roughly £3,150 ($4,000) in debt for her visa, plus about £1,180 ($1,500) a month in rent for a shared flat. Within months her debt reportedly climbed to around £7,870 ($10,000), a sum she says her family could never have matched.

When she broke down in tears before Brunel over her mounting debts, she says he had roughly £470 ($600) sent to her parents within minutes, a gesture she says underlined how completely the agency controlled her. Separately, two women filed complaints in 2019 alleging similar abuse at the same office; one, identified only as Katlyn Doe, alleged she was made to engage in sexual encounters with Epstein there, according to court filings reviewed by CNN.

A 2020 Justice Department review found Acosta exercised 'poor judgement' but not misconduct. The Sheriff's Office ended its work-release programme months after Epstein's death.

Gilles, now working as a fitness coach in the Midwest, says she is only beginning to reckon publicly with a past she had hidden even from her parents until the Epstein files' release exposed her name this year.