Under the terms of his will, she stands to inherit up to $100 million, along with a 33-carat diamond ring. Yet for years, she kept her connection to one of the most notorious men in America almost entirely out of public view.
Somewhere in the paperwork of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate sits a diamond ring worth a fortune, meant for a woman “in contemplation of marriage.” That woman is Dr Karyna Shuliak, a 37-year-old dentist from Belarus who spent nearly eight years as Epstein’s girlfriend, and who was the last person he spoke to on the phone before he died in his jail cell in 2019, according to the New York Times.
Under the terms of his will, she stands to inherit up to $100 million, along with a 33-carat diamond ring. Yet for years, she kept her connection to one of the most notorious men in America almost entirely out of public view.
That changed in late January, when the Justice Department released three million pages of files and emails gathered during its investigation into Epstein. Buried inside were thousands of private messages between Shuliak and Epstein, along with dozens of photographs documenting their relationship. Suddenly, a chapter of her life she had kept private for the better part of a decade was there for anyone to read.
Who Is Karyna Shuliak?
According to the Times’ review of the files, Shuliak emerges as an unusual figure within Epstein’s orbit. She has never described herself as one of his victims, and federal authorities have never treated her as a co-conspirator in his sex trafficking operation.
What the emails do show is a relationship built on money, dependence and control. Epstein called her his “favourite” and told her often that he loved her. She had free use of a credit card, travelled the world at his expense, and received close to $1 million in payments from him over the years. He also sent tens of thousands of dollars to her parents back in Belarus.
The emails included disagreements over sex, orders with a sexual wellness company aimed at couples, and occasionally, links to explicit videos. Other exchanges covered things like birth control pills and acne treatment.
Over time, she took on real responsibility in his world, helping to manage his properties and staff, and even playing a role in his attempt to buy a palace in Morocco just weeks before his arrest in 2019. Epstein held the power in the relationship throughout, the Times report says, but there is little doubt she gained from it too, professionally, personally and financially.
Chance Meeting In Manhattan
Shuliak had lived in New York for only nine months when she met Epstein in late March 2011, when he was 58 years old. She had arrived from Belarus on a temporary student visa to study English, working as a dental assistant for around $15 an hour while applying for waitressing jobs and trying to figure out how to finish the dental training she had started back home.
According to the files, a young woman from Siberia introduced the two of them. That woman later told the Times she had, at times, been expected to bring other young women to Epstein, presumably so he could arrange sexualised massages, and it appears that was his intention with Shuliak too.
Their early encounters followed a pattern familiar from his dealings with other young women. Epstein flattered her, showered her with gifts, and almost immediately offered to help her pursue her dream of becoming a dentist, the files show.
But Shuliak pushed back. A few weeks after meeting him, she wrote to Epstein calling him a “remarkable person,” but said she could not accept his help.
She never spelt out exactly what had troubled her, though their meeting came after Epstein had already pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, and had been accused of abusing dozens of other teenagers. He responded by accusing her of listening to “rumours and stories.”
Epstein did not take no for an answer. He kept pursuing her. Within months, she had visited his ranch in New Mexico and his private island in the US Virgin Islands.
Buying A Place At Columbia
Shuliak had wanted to be a dentist since she was a child. She had completed four of the five years of dental training in Minsk before moving to New York. By the winter of 2012, she had agreed to let Epstein help her get into dental school. Columbia’s College of Dental Medicine initially turned her down, so Epstein reached out to his own dentist, a prominent Columbia alumnus, and asked him to put him in touch with the dean. Epstein floated the idea of donating up to $10 million to the university. In the end, records show he gave around $210,000.
Files released by the Justice Department include text messages showing that Dr Magnani and Dr James Fine, school administrators, gave Shuliak advance notice of the topics that would come up in an April 2012 exam designed to test her practical skills as a transfer student.
Once she was admitted, Epstein flew her mother in from Belarus for a visit and paid her tuition for the next three years. “You are the purest man out of all men,” she wrote to him in June 2012. “All your love and care, my parents, school, apartment. THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!!!”
The relationship was not without friction. The pair reportedly clashed over Epstein’s insistence on sleeping with other women in their twenties. “I understand you need it, however, these are the things that don’t feel natural to me, it feels somewhat dirty to me,” she wrote to him in August 2012.
She simply asked to be kept away from that part of his life. “If that is not a lot to ask, please enjoy it but keep me away from it,” she wrote. “I will stay with you no matter what, as long as you are happy. I love you.”
The Marriage That Secured Her Citizenship
By the time she applied to Columbia in 2012, Shuliak had already overstayed the student visa granted to her in 2010. Early in 2013, Epstein worked out a way to keep her in the country. He concluded that a marriage between two women there was the least conspicuous route to citizenship.
He picked one of his own assistants and a victim, a 30-year-old woman from Minnesota, to be the bride.
Emails show Epstein instructed the woman to meet Shuliak on the morning of 16 September 2013 at the New York City Marriage Bureau. The two women married three weeks later at the Office of the City Clerk, with photographs taken to mark the day.
Afterwards, an immigration lawyer working for Epstein filed paperwork naming Shuliak as the woman’s wife and beneficiary. The request was approved, her pending deportation case was dropped, and months later she received a green card.
In May 2018, Shuliak became a US citizen. The couple divorced a year later. A report released this year by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said her former wife had claimed she was forced into the marriage, and had not realised the wedding was arranged just days before Shuliak’s own deportation hearing.
The Final Phone Call
By early 2019, the pair appeared, in every outward sense, to be a couple. Shuliak was living for much of the time at Epstein’s New York mansion. She had by then qualified as a licensed dentist in the US Virgin Islands, Florida and New Mexico, having finished dental school in 2015, though there is little evidence she built up much of a client base of her own.
Instead, much of her time went into running his households. She arranged floral displays for his mansion, ordered furniture for his island, and managed cleaning and repair schedules for the flats.
In mid-June 2019, the two travelled together to Paris, where Epstein had an apartment. On 6 July, he flew back to the United States while she remained in Europe. When his plane landed at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, federal agents were waiting to arrest him.
About a month later, during a 20-minute call from a jail in Lower Manhattan, Epstein told Shuliak that the case against him would take longer to resolve than he had expected, and advised her to find somewhere else to stay in the meantime. He had told her “to be strong.”
The next morning, 10 August 2019, Epstein was found dead in his cell, having taken his own life.
Shortly before he died, he had amended his will to leave Shuliak a substantial share of his roughly $600 million fortune, including the 33-carat diamond ring, described in a handwritten note as being given “in contemplation of marriage.” Exactly how much she will receive remains unclear. After payouts to his victims, the estate is now valued at between $120 million and $200 million, and there are dozens of other beneficiaries.
