TheBadPlaceqwant news | Ex-sex slave describes Jeffrey Epstein's Ponzi scheme of perversion by undefined
Former Russian model Svetlana Pozhidaeva, who worked as one of Jeffrey Epstein’s “assistants” from 2008 to 2019, described the operation as a Ponzi‑like trafficking network. She said she was recruited in 2008 through a modeling scout who promised a Victoria’s Secret audition, after which Epstein arranged her visa, housed her in his Upper East Side home and tightly controlled every aspect of her life—immigration status, finances, and where she lived. Pozhidaeva was tasked with finding other young women, mostly from Eastern Europe, who resembled teenagers; the more “recruits” she delivered, the less likely she would be forced into sexual contact with Epstein himself. She recounted constant exhaustion, eating disorders, depression, and insomnia, noting that she felt ashamed for years and was too consumed by her own abuse to see the plight of other victims.
The article explains that after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, he shifted focus from under‑age girls to adult women who looked like teens, using promises of modeling gigs, bogus jobs and access to his “black book” of influential contacts. Although he occasionally provided loans to his “assistants” and their families, these financial favors created a debt‑based dependency that turned the women into sexual serfs. Pozhidaeva said Epstein monitored her obsessively, taking compromising photos, demanding reports on what the women owed him, and pressuring her to recruit more victims—mirroring the recruitment tactics of cults such as NXIVM. The federal indictment against Epstein was poised to expand to include these adult women before his mysterious death in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019.
Pozhidaeva’s testimony, given to the Wall Street Journal and cited in the article, highlights how Epstein’s operation functioned as a self‑sustaining recruiting cycle: each assistant was forced to bring in new models to keep the scheme alive, while simultaneously being subjected to sexual exploitation. She expressed remorse for the other women involved, saying, “I feel ashamed and think about those other women all the time,” and emphasized that she is now determined to stand up for herself after a decade of bullying and control. The piece also notes recent releases of emails, photos, and court documents that further detail Epstein’s manipulation, the role of accomplices like Ghislaine Maxwell, and the ongoing investigations into the broader network of exploitation.
Read more: https://torontosun.com/news/world/ex-sex-slave-describes-jeffrey-epsteins-ponzi-scheme-of-perversion
