The first day Roza Gilles showed up for her new job at a high-rise office building in downtown Palm Beach in the summer of 2009, a woman was massaging Jeffrey Epstein’s feet.
Gilles, 18 at the time, had recently come to the US to pursue her career as a model after being approached backstage in her home country of Uzbekistan by a modeling agent with ties to Epstein. Gilles was immediately saddled with debt by the modeling agency, which charged her thousands of dollars for her visa and rent. Distraught, Gilles thought she’d be better off going back to Asia where she had a successful run as a teenage model, but Epstein offered her a weekend job as a receptionist in his office to supplement her income.
Now, in a room with Epstein inside of a 14th floor office, the woman invited Gilles to sit next to her. As Epstein gave Gilles his foot, she noticed a black plastic band around his ankle with a small box with a blinking light attached to it. When she asked what it was, Gilles says Epstein and the woman laughed. Epstein then told Gilles to take her shirt off.
“I froze,” Gilles said. “And the woman comes over and starts unbuttoning my blouse. She takes it off, then she takes off my bra, and then she walks out.”
Epstein sexually assaulted Gilles for the first time that day – the beginning of years of rape and abuse. She wouldn’t realize until sometime later that the device Epstein had been wearing was an ankle monitor and that he was serving jail time for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Gilles is one of countless women abused by the late convicted child sex offender. Her story – which she is publicly sharing in full for the first time with CNN – offers a vivid window into the unusual parameters of Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea deal in Florida that authorized him to spend much of his sentence outside of jail. That arrangement allowed Epstein to continue abusing young women even as he was serving his sentence following his conviction. That included young foreign models such as Gilles – and at times, the abuse took place while a Palm Beach County sheriff’s officer was in the next room, survivors told CNN.
“He didn’t stop what he was doing while convicted. He was doing the same thing,” Gilles said. “He had no remorse. The things he was doing to me hurt me so much, and left the biggest scar, and I will never – I will never be able to move on from this, no matter how hard I try.”
Two women who spoke to CNN under the condition that they not be named publicly said that they too were abused by Epstein at the Florida Science Foundation office. The non-profit wascreated in November 2007shortly before Epstein entered his guilty plea, and claimed to provide grants and financial support to science and research organizations. The women described the 14th floor office space as accessible by elevator that often buzzed with visitors and activity during the work week. One woman recalled that there were numerous white noise machines – white, mushroom-like domes – placed throughout the office.
Epstein appeared to have developed something of a routine for the days that he spent at the Florida Science Foundation, these women said. His mornings there began with coffee and a muffin, and the financier, who complained that he didn’t sleep well at the Palm Beach Stockade minimum security prison, would take regular naps on a futon in a conference room. One woman distinctly remembered moments when Epstein’s ankle monitor would go off, forcing him to run outside to try to reset the device.
Epstein’s conduct during this period was characteristically brazen. Both at his West Palm Beach home and at the office, survivors say Epstein sometimes sexually assaulted them while an officer in uniform was nearby, ostensibly to keep an eye on the newly registered sex offender. At the Florida Science Foundation, a rotating roster of officers would sit near the entrance to the office. Two women said they remembered thinking that the officers seemed afraid of Epstein. There was no question, they said, that Epstein was the boss.
For Gilles, her own encounter with a man in uniform who she believed was a sheriff’s officer took place one morning at Epstein’s West Palm Beach mansion, where she said she was asked to go on a weekly basis in the summer of 2009. Gilles walked downstairs one morning and saw the officer standing in the kitchen, and felt a sudden sense of hope. “I thought to myself, ‘Thank you, this is going to be the day that this all stops,’” she told CNN.
She watched the officer banter and laugh with Epstein, and after wishing Epstein a good day, walk out – without saying a word to her.
“After I saw that sheriff, I understood that no matter what you do, this man is never going to be arrested,” Gilles said. “This man will never be stopped, and regardless of whether you scream and shout from the top of the universe, nobody would care.”
The accounts fromGilles and other survivors who say they were abused by Epstein while he was serving out his 13-month sentence raise serious questions about the controversial 2008 plea deal that Epstein struck with former US attorneyAlex Acosta.
Epstein began working “full time” as president of the Florida Science Foundation in October 2008, according to a2021 reviewof Epstein’s work-release program conducted by Florida officials. For the first six months, Epstein was allowed to be at the foundation’s office from 10am to 10pm, Monday through Saturday. In May 2009, those hours were extended, requiring Epstein to be physically in jail for only eight hours a day. By the following month, Epstein’s work release program again expanded, letting him work seven days a week at the foundation.
