Playboy founder Hugh Hefner repeatedly called the FBI to report Jeffrey Epstein for sexual abuse in 2005, after a Playboy Playmate told him she was raped and trafficked by the disgraced financier, according to new details in a lawsuit.
Audra Lynn Christiansen — Miss October 2003 — turned to Hef for help when she was 23 and living at his Beverly Hills mansion, prompting the late magazine publisher to call the agency “multiple times” for assistance, according to the suit, filed by 32 Epstein victims against the United States.
In addition to the rape allegations, Christiansen said she confided in Hefner that she also was trafficked to one of his rich friends — Macau casino billionaire Stanley Ho, China’s “Godfather of gambling” who died in 2020, according to the filing.
She asked Hefner to call on her behalf in 2005, because she felt he had law enforcement connections and the “clout” to her allegations were taken seriously.
“Mr. Hefner called the FBI multiple times on behalf of Ms. Christiansen to report Jeffrey Epstein,” the complaint states.
The revelations are part of an amended complaint filed in May in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida by Epstein victims who charge the FBI failed to act on multiple reports about his sexual abuse as early as 1996.
“The fact that the FBI is trying to utilize procedural technicalities to try to avert accountability and responsibility for its failures to properly investigate Jeffrey Epstein for over 20 years should be deeply concerning to all,” Jordan Merson, lawyer for the victims, told The Post. “How can you learn from errors if you do not acknowledge them?”
Christiansen, 46, who was part of the reality television series “The Girls Next Door,” was only contacted by the FBI in October 2020, after Epstein’s death, to follow up on the information provided 15 years earlier, according to the lawsuit.
She told the FBI that her agents introduced her to Epstein, who wanted to meet her after the Playboy shoot came out, according to the 2020 FBI report of the call included in the court filing.
The Minnesota-born former model wrote in the 2003 “Playmate data sheet” that accompanied her nude centerfold that her turn-on was “a secure older man who makes me laugh” and her turnoffs included “being taken for granted.”
