Karyna Shuliak was Jeffrey Epstein's last partner and main heiress. She won't benefit from his will

Karyna Shuliak and Jeffrey Epstein in New York, April 2014. BILLY FARRELL/BFA/SHUTTERSTOCK/SIPA/LE MONDE

A loyal companion of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, Karyna Shuliak was the last person to speak to him on the phone shortly before his suicide in prison on August 10, 2019. Close to the disgraced financier, to whom she was simultaneously a lover, manager and dependent, she appears as his main beneficiary in the will he wrote in his cell before his death.

According to that document, Shuliak was supposed to inherit $100 million (€85 million) and the criminal's properties: his Manhattan townhouse, his apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris, his private islands, his ranch in New Mexico, as well as a 32-carat ring purchased for $1.2 million. Despite this lavish inheritance, the 36-year-old, who currently lives in New York, will not see a penny, as American and French authorities have decided to freeze the estate to allocate it to a victims' compensation fund.

It all began in 2009. Shuliak, then a 20-year-old student of dental medicine at Minsk University, started corresponding with the billionaire, who was 36 years older than her. Known for his preference for women from Eastern Europe, Epstein invited her – all expenses paid – to the United States, promising help with her studies and support for her visa application. Arriving in New York in August of that year, the young woman became part of the financier's life, just after he had served his first prison sentence for procuring minors for prostitution. He liked her, and he kept his promises.