26 The Mail on Sunday^ September 1^ •^2019
Was Russian model linked to ‘sex traff icker’
in Epstein’s lair at sa me time as Andrew?
ON a chilly December afternoon
on Manhattan’s Upper East Side,
an attractive brunette hurries from
Jeffrey Epstein’s now infamous
mansion and loads her luggage into
the back of a waiting taxi.
While far from an unusual occur-
rence – witnesses have spoken of
a ‘revolving door’ of young women
entering and leaving the depraved
millionaire’s home – the identity
of this particular house guest
presents an intriguing mystery,
not least because Prince andrew
was inside the mansion at the time
the photograph was taken. a tagon her suitcase suggests she is
Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a former
Russian model whose father was a
Lieutenant Colonel in the Red
army and who herself attended a
Moscow university once describedas an ‘incubator’ for the KGB. She
later joined a model agency run by
Jean-Luc Brunel, who has been
accused of procuring young women
for Epstein.
Such is the scandal’s toxicity that
almost everyone in Epstein’s orbit is
running for cover and Ms Pozhidaeva,
who now heads a women’s charity, is
no exception.
Quite simply, she denies she is the
woman caught on camera leaving his
house on December 7, 2010,
though even close relatives note the
striking resemblance.
What Ms Pozhidaeva does acknowl-
edge, however, is a long association
with Epstein, of whom she once
thought highly and who helped
bankroll her entry into the charity
world (though sources say she has
now returned the money) and that
she was pictured eating an avocado
outside his house in 2016.
Sources close to Ms Pozhidaeva,
known as Lana to friends, last night
stressed that she does not know the
Duke and has ‘never talked to him’.Curiously, however, one said: ‘You
can ask him [about Ms Pozhidaeva]
and most likely he’d say the same
thing, I think.’
It is indeed understood that Prince
andrew, who spent at least six days
at Epstein’s Manhattan home in
December 2010, has no memory of a
woman called Svetlana Pozhidaeva.
He has repeatedly denied any inap-
propriate behaviour and insisted that
‘at no stage during the limited time I
spent with him [Epstein] did I see,
witness or suspect any behaviour of
the sort that subsequently led to his
arrest and conviction’.
as The Mail on Sunday revealed last
month, the Prince was caught on cam-
era on December 6, 2010, standing in
the doorway of Epstein’s mansion
cheerily waving off Katherine Keat-
ing, the daughter of the former aus-
tralian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Less than 24 hours later – at 2.07pm- ‘Svetlana’ left with her suitcase.
Meanwhile, a close relative of Ms
Pozhidaeva, now 35, said of Epstein:
‘Yes, of course we know him. In our
family, between ourselves, we call
him “Friend” to avoid calling him by
his name.’
There is no evidence that Ms Pozhi-
daeva was one of Epstein’s victims.
Sources insist her relationship with
him was founded on a shared interest
in charitable endeavours.
Nevertheless there is something –
or rather someone – that threatens to
drag her further into the affair: both
she and Epstein are linked to Jean-
Luc Brunel.
Four years ago Brunel, now in his
70s, was named in a civil lawsuit in
which he was accused of procuring
young girls for the financier, some-
thing he denies.
In a photograph that emerged last
week, Brunel is shown cuddling up to
crooked tycoon Robert Maxwell’s
daughter, Ghislaine, who has been
similarly accused of recruiting teen-
age girls to Epstein’s child prostitu-
tion ring. She too denies the claims.
Before her charity career took off, Ms
Pozhidaeva was signed to Brunel’s
model agency MC2. One of the damag-
ing claims facing Brunel is that young
East European girls were brought by
MC2 to the US on Epstein’s private jet.
However, the suitcase tag in the back
of the taxi on December 7, 2010, shows
a Ms Pozhidaeva arriving in New York
on an aeroflot flight on November 19
that year.
How Ms Pozhidaeva and Epstein met
is unclear but, according to a source,
the financier was soon providing her
with an opportunity to study and to
‘attend conferences with scientists’.
‘What she liked was that he donated
a lot to science and helped many
researchers and interesting people,’
the source added.
M s P o z h i d a e v a , m e a n w h i l e ,
has rather an interesting background
herself. She was raised in Moscow in a
flat in a 1950s apartment block built
for staffers of the NKVD, the Stalinist
predecessor of the KGB. With its‘We call Epstein “Friend”
to avoid using his name’
NO MEMORY OF MEETING: Prince
Andrew in Epstein’s mansion in 2010.
Below: Modelling agent Jean-Luc BrunelBy Caroline Graham, Will Stewart and Ian Gallagher
in Los angeLes, moscow and London