In the fall of 2013, hundreds of students entered the doors of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School for the first time. One of them — an Austrian woman — arrived with requests from Jeffrey Epstein to recruit women on campus for his sex trafficking operation, according to recently released documents.
The billionaire financier pursued a yearslong relationship with the woman, influencing both her decision to attend Penn and her year on campus pursuing a Master of Laws degree, according to messages in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice and reviewed by The Daily Pennsylvanian.
The woman has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there is no evidence she went along with Epstein’s request to recruit women on Penn’s campus.
Documents show how Epstein attempted to reach Penn, illustrating the lengths he went to coerce, pressure, and manipulate women he was sexually involved with under the guise of mentorship and intimacy.
Many messages in the DOJ files, including those between Epstein and the Penn Carey Law graduate, contain typos and misspellings. Those errors have been retained as they originally appear in the documents.
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In 2012, the woman wrote to Epstein about her aspirations to attend an elite law school: “I want to get to Harvard, Columbia, NYU or maybe Stanford,” she wrote, later adding Penn to the list.
Five months later, she consulted Epstein for advice on her acceptances to Georgetown Law and Penn Carey Law. When she asked him whether the steep cost of attendance was worth it, Epstein replied, “yes definitley,” especially if she found him “interesing giirs there.”
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While Georgetown had “smarter peopl,” Epstein wrote that Penn was “more fun” and had a “bigger campus” with “better programs.”
In April 2013, the woman wrote to Epstein that she would be attending Penn for a Master of Laws degree after receiving a partial scholarship.
Their correspondence reflected a well-documented pattern of behavior, in which the ex-financier enlisted women with whom he was sexually involved to expand his vast trafficking operation.
By the time the two were acquainted, Epstein was classified as a level three sex offender by the Supreme Court of New York County. He had previously been convicted and imprisoned — and was facing ongoing civil litigation from numerous victims.
The woman’s lawyer, Brittany Henderson, wrote in a statement to the DP that the woman was “coerced” into sexual acts with Epstein and subjected to both physical and verbal abuse. As such, the DP confirmed her affiliation with Penn but omitted the woman’s name and the alias she used to correspond with Epstein from this article.
The woman “did not comply with Epstein’s demands to introduce him to women,” Henderson wrote. “Most emails from victims are written in fear, and must be read with an understanding of the coercion, manipulation, and abuse behind them.”
According to Henderson, Epstein “did not help her with her admission to UPenn and did not pay any of her tuition.”
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Maria Prusakova, a fellow legal intern of the woman, introduced her to Epstein in Paris during the winter of 2011.
“She thinks that you are fun and very curious,” Prusakova wrote to him after the initial meeting. Prusakova was reportedly a recruiter for Epstein and had once written to the ex-financier that she could help him obtain “Russian and Austrian girls.”
The woman and Epstein quickly began a cross-continental correspondence in which Epstein positioned himself as the woman’s mentor.
In the first few months of their relationship, he instructed her on how to use a sex toy, shared pornographic content, and advised her on how to seduce men, according to their email exchanges. Offline, the two went out with friends, dined at high-end restaurants in Paris, and met for late nights in Epstein’s New York apartment.
In February 2012, Epstein introduced the woman to British financier Ian Osborne. When she asked him what she ought “to do with Ian” one night, Epstein told her to “give him everything” and then tell Osborne that “Jeffrey deserves a thank you note.”
The documents do not show evidence that Epstein actually trafficked the woman to Osborne.
The Financial Times previously reported that Epstein had helped advance Osborne’s investment career. Osborne did not respond to a request for comment from the DP.
“I never witnessed, nor was aware of, the repellent and illegal behaviour by him,” Osborne told the FT. “It was a serious error of judgment, and one I bitterly regret. I am forever sorry for all the people who suffered by him.”
Soon, Epstein was pressuring the woman to recruit for him.
In another February 2012 exchange, the billionaire asked her to find “three new girls” as “punishment” for an unspecified mistake.
“You are a great student,, the best in fact,” Epstein wrote in the message thread. “howver, i know that you need to approach girls every day , do get over the fear.”
In the emails that follow, Epstein offers conversation starters and coaches her through the process of approaching women, telling her “if you get one out of 12 , you are ok.” Soon after, she updates him on a “latvian girl” who is working as an escort, “might be looking for new girls,” and “seems to be a good target.”
Over the next few months, the woman wrote to Epstein about her efforts to procure victims for him — a task which seemed to clash with her lifestyle.
“I am at work clearly wasting my time and intelligence with some boring stuff instead of looking for girls,” she wrote to Epstein in April that year.
Later that month, the woman wrote to Epstein that she was in “preliminary talks” with a “target” whom she would send to Avenue Foch, the location of Epstein’s Paris home.
In a September 2012 instance, Epstein asked the woman to find him an assistant who could work in Europe. When she asked if this was “another way to ask me to introduce you to girls,” Epstein shot back that she should stop being “defensive.”
Epstein returned to Europe in October 2012, receiving half-hearted messages from the woman that were punctuated by broken-off attempts to see each other in Paris. When Epstein pressed her on her “reluctance,” she confessed her unwillingness to fulfill his requests.
“I am not the person who will introduce you to girls and I do not intend to ask you for anything,” she wrote. “It is not as easy anymore but I would just love to see you again as I really like you.”
In the subsequent months, the pair’s correspondence dwindled. When she wished him happy birthday in February 2013 and apologized for sounding “childish,” Epstein told her she could make up for it by trying “to deliver” the next time he flew to Paris.
By the time she arrived at Penn for her first semester of law school in August 2013, the pair had resumed frequent communication.
The woman told Epstein that she was “by far the cutest girl at Penn.” When Epstein replied the next day to see if the woman had found any “bttter girls,” she replied, “I have to wait until September to see - for now it’s only Asians and Indians.”
In September of that year, the woman wrote to Epstein that the “JDs have arrived” and she “discovered Wharton.” She explained how she was overwhelmed by the number of “invitations” she got from the Penn men she was meeting, adding that she thought the “girls are a bit boring or jealous.”
At the time, she also tried to enroll in a class with renowned Penn psychology professor Martin Seligman. Seligman was one of the academics Epstein tried to court after he was released from a Florida prison in June 2009.
Epstein told the woman to “tell [Seligman’s] secretary that you are my friend” after she was unsuccessful in getting a seat in his class.
Seligman previously told the DP he does not have any record of that woman enrolling in the class.
Throughout the woman’s year at Penn, the two had occasional meetings in New York and abroad. But by her graduation in May 2014, the frequency of their communication decreased — a consequence her lawyer attributed to her unwillingness to cooperate with Epstein’s demands.
In January 2016, the woman — who was practicing law in Europe — sent an email to Epstein asking if he’d like to meet.
“UPenn grad, lawyer, we met years ago in Paris,” her message read. “Do you remember me?”
Ethan Young is the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian and can be reached at young@thedp.com. At Penn, he studies history and political science. Follow him on X @EthanYoung.
Jasmine Ni is the Executive Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. and can be reached at ni@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies English and political science. Follow her on X @JasmineNi_.
