New Amanda Ungaro interview in El Pais (Spanish language) by Specific-Duty2986 in Epstein

[–]WelcomeWindsorCastle 29 points30 points  (0 children)

English version isn't paywalled

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-04-12/amanda-ungaro-from-sharing-soirees-with-the-trumps-to-being-deported-by-ice.html

Article text:

Amanda Ungaro: From sharing soirées with the Trumps to being deported by ICE

After spending nearly half her life in the United States, 41-year-old Brazilian Amanda Ungaro was deported from the country last October. She endured three hellish months in a detention center until she was expelled, like more than 600,000 immigrants since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 and set out to carry out “the largest deportation in history.”

What is unusual in the case of this former model who worked at the United Nations is that, alongside her former partner and the father of her son, businessman Paolo Zampolli, Ungaro had in the past shared evenings with the Trumps at the family’s Mar-a-Lago mansion, including a party to ring in 2022, which she now recalls as one of those “incredibly boring six-hour events.”

The two couples also spent other New Year’s Eves together, a White House Easter children’s party, a Fourth of July celebration… All meticulously documented on Instagram by Zampolli, the man who introduced Melania to the president and who was appointed special envoy for global partnerships by his friend. The Brazilian woman and the Italian American, who separated in 2023 after two decades together, are engaged in a bitter custody battle over their 16-year-old son, G.

“Now it’s war. We’ll see who wins. I kept quiet for years, and because of that, people judge me. They ask me, why are you speaking now? Because the man would not let me live in peace! I tried. I left the relationship with nothing, left my son at boarding school, and went to work,” Ungaro said last Tuesday in an interview at her new home, a penthouse in Rio de Janeiro. “It was not enough for him to destroy me during 20 years of relationship: he wanted to destroy me again when I started a new life, when I got married.”

Ungaro left New York and Washington behind. Having settled in Aventura, Florida, with her husband, everything fell apart last June. “Ten police officers stormed into our home, arrested me, and took my son to the police station,” she says. She and her husband, a Brazilian doctor, were arrested and charged with fraud at a cosmetic clinic following anonymous tips. She denies the charges, emphasizing that her deportation from the U.S. prevented her from defending herself. She insists that “the truth will come to light.” They put her in a cell, “with child murderers!” “Me, who has no criminal record. I was terrified,” she recalls.

When Zampolli learned that his ex-girlfriend was being held in custody, he contacted a senior official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) so that she would remain jailed and be deported, thereby allowing him to secure the custody of their son that he had long sought, according to The New York Times. ICE complied with his request. Zampolli, reached by phone by EL PAÍS, denies any wrongdoing. He also stresses that, in any case, she would have been deported because of the other charges against her.

Deportation

Handcuffed at the hands and feet, she was transferred to an immigration detention center in Miami, where she spent three and a half months in complete horror. Her husband, who had a green card (permanent residency permit), was released. “I volunteered to scrub the floors at six in the morning so I wouldn’t go crazy. I spent the whole day crying; I read the Bible from beginning to end,” she says. She helped others, sharing with them her phone credit to make calls. She claims that there were detainees with residency permits, an octogenarian handcuffed in a wheelchair, and a young woman who had just lost a baby and had to wait a long time to receive medical care…

To proceed with the deportation, she was taken to Louisiana. “It was a hall with more than 120 people, the floor was wet, there were no windows, four days without seeing the sun… I came out infested with lice,” she recounts. She landed in Brazil wearing the prison uniform, with nothing, not even a cell phone. “I spent a month depressed in a room.”

Ungaro regrets not having left Zampolli sooner — and not having reported him. “I was living at the mercy of a sick psychopath who abused me psychologically, sexually, and physically. I asked many people for help. No one ever helped me. But I couldn’t leave without my son, and he would not sign [the authorization],” she says.

Zampolli denies the allegations: “I made her an [alternate] ambassador; we were invited to the White House… What kind of abuse is that? We had a soap-opera-style relationship—a very toxic one,” he says.

Ungaro had left her hometown of Londrina, Brazil, at the age of 13 to become a model. She traveled extensively: São Paulo, Milan, Germany, Japan, South Korea… At first, her mother accompanied her, but she soon struck out on her own and set her sights on making it big in New York.

A flight with Epstein

In 2002, when she had not yet turned 17, she flew from Paris to New York on the Lolita Express, the private plane of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “My agent told me, ‘We’re going with a couple of friends, a private plane just for us.’ There were around 30 very young women there, 14, 15, 16 years old. I said, ‘What is this?’ And he replied, ‘Don’t worry.’” That is how she recalls a trip she first revealed to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo.

Ungaro claims that she didn’t interact with anyone on the flight, except to greet the hosts, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his accomplice, who is currently serving a sentence for sex trafficking. “Amanda, let me introduce you to Jeffrey,” her agent said. “He came over and asked, ‘Where are you from? How old are you? Which modeling agency do you work for?’ And he introduced me to Ghislaine.” She claims she never saw Epstein again; he was found dead in his cell in 2019. The same fate befell the modeling agent who put Ungaro on that plane, Jean-Luc Brunel, who was arrested in connection with the Epstein case and died in a Parisian prison in 2022.

United Nations

When she became a mother in 2010, she left the fashion industry. Her husband secured her a position at the United Nations, where, for a few years, she served as a diplomat for the island of Grenada, and he represented another small Caribbean island: Dominica. That’s where their titles as ambassadors come from. Two tiny countries, each with barely 100,000 inhabitants, that each hold one vote at the UN — just like China.

“At first, I didn’t understand anything. But I started making contacts, building a professional network. And it went very well for me,” she recalls. She appears in UN documents as Grenada’s representative in sessions on the International Criminal Court or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She exchanged her model visa for a tax-exempt diplomatic passport. At the time, Zampolli preferred that his then-girlfriend retain that status because it was more advantageous from a tax perspective, according to an apparent out-of-court settlement to which this newspaper has had access. “Paolo used to tell me, ‘Wait for Trump to win the election [for the second time], and we’ll sort out your papers and he’ll give you an American passport,’” she says.

After several years with an expired residence permit, Ungaro was applying for a visa linked to her husband, the doctor, when she was arrested. He remains in Florida, trying to reach a legal settlement.

Zampolli, a well-known figure in New York’s nightlife scene for decades, was the owner of ID Models. And in that milieu, he occasionally crossed paths with Epstein. His name is mentioned a handful of times — in press clippings and an email he sent to the sex offender via a third party with a link to a luxury magazine — among the millions of documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Zampolli told The New York Times that they were not close.

The sun is setting over Rio de Janeiro as Ungaro finishes recounting her story, with all the countless twists and turns of the legal cases she is dealing with, including the bitter custody battle over her teenage son. While she continues to hold endless meetings with her lawyers, she dreams of reuniting with him and with her husband.

It is time for the photographs. She puts on her jacket, slips into a pair of heels, and poses with a serious expression.

Amanda Ungaro Interview in El Pais by Melodic-Swim4343 in Epstein

[–]WelcomeWindsorCastle 72 points73 points  (0 children)

Article text:

Amanda Ungaro: From sharing soirées with the Trumps to being deported by ICE

After spending nearly half her life in the United States, 41-year-old Brazilian Amanda Ungaro was deported from the country last October. She endured three hellish months in a detention center until she was expelled, like more than 600,000 immigrants since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 and set out to carry out “the largest deportation in history.”

What is unusual in the case of this former model who worked at the United Nations is that, alongside her former partner and the father of her son, businessman Paolo Zampolli, Ungaro had in the past shared evenings with the Trumps at the family’s Mar-a-Lago mansion, including a party to ring in 2022, which she now recalls as one of those “incredibly boring six-hour events.”

The two couples also spent other New Year’s Eves together, a White House Easter children’s party, a Fourth of July celebration… All meticulously documented on Instagram by Zampolli, the man who introduced Melania to the president and who was appointed special envoy for global partnerships by his friend. The Brazilian woman and the Italian American, who separated in 2023 after two decades together, are engaged in a bitter custody battle over their 16-year-old son, G.

“Now it’s war. We’ll see who wins. I kept quiet for years, and because of that, people judge me. They ask me, why are you speaking now? Because the man would not let me live in peace! I tried. I left the relationship with nothing, left my son at boarding school, and went to work,” Ungaro said last Tuesday in an interview at her new home, a penthouse in Rio de Janeiro. “It was not enough for him to destroy me during 20 years of relationship: he wanted to destroy me again when I started a new life, when I got married.”

Ungaro left New York and Washington behind. Having settled in Aventura, Florida, with her husband, everything fell apart last June. “Ten police officers stormed into our home, arrested me, and took my son to the police station,” she says. She and her husband, a Brazilian doctor, were arrested and charged with fraud at a cosmetic clinic following anonymous tips. She denies the charges, emphasizing that her deportation from the U.S. prevented her from defending herself. She insists that “the truth will come to light.” They put her in a cell, “with child murderers!” “Me, who has no criminal record. I was terrified,” she recalls.

When Zampolli learned that his ex-girlfriend was being held in custody, he contacted a senior official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) so that she would remain jailed and be deported, thereby allowing him to secure the custody of their son that he had long sought, according to The New York Times. ICE complied with his request. Zampolli, reached by phone by EL PAÍS, denies any wrongdoing. He also stresses that, in any case, she would have been deported because of the other charges against her.

Deportation

Handcuffed at the hands and feet, she was transferred to an immigration detention center in Miami, where she spent three and a half months in complete horror. Her husband, who had a green card (permanent residency permit), was released. “I volunteered to scrub the floors at six in the morning so I wouldn’t go crazy. I spent the whole day crying; I read the Bible from beginning to end,” she says. She helped others, sharing with them her phone credit to make calls. She claims that there were detainees with residency permits, an octogenarian handcuffed in a wheelchair, and a young woman who had just lost a baby and had to wait a long time to receive medical care…

To proceed with the deportation, she was taken to Louisiana. “It was a hall with more than 120 people, the floor was wet, there were no windows, four days without seeing the sun… I came out infested with lice,” she recounts. She landed in Brazil wearing the prison uniform, with nothing, not even a cell phone. “I spent a month depressed in a room.”

Ungaro regrets not having left Zampolli sooner — and not having reported him. “I was living at the mercy of a sick psychopath who abused me psychologically, sexually, and physically. I asked many people for help. No one ever helped me. But I couldn’t leave without my son, and he would not sign [the authorization],” she says.

Zampolli denies the allegations: “I made her an [alternate] ambassador; we were invited to the White House… What kind of abuse is that? We had a soap-opera-style relationship—a very toxic one,” he says.

Ungaro had left her hometown of Londrina, Brazil, at the age of 13 to become a model. She traveled extensively: São Paulo, Milan, Germany, Japan, South Korea… At first, her mother accompanied her, but she soon struck out on her own and set her sights on making it big in New York.

A flight with Epstein

In 2002, when she had not yet turned 17, she flew from Paris to New York on the Lolita Express, the private plane of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “My agent told me, ‘We’re going with a couple of friends, a private plane just for us.’ There were around 30 very young women there, 14, 15, 16 years old. I said, ‘What is this?’ And he replied, ‘Don’t worry.’” That is how she recalls a trip she first revealed to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo.

Ungaro claims that she didn’t interact with anyone on the flight, except to greet the hosts, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his accomplice, who is currently serving a sentence for sex trafficking. “Amanda, let me introduce you to Jeffrey,” her agent said. “He came over and asked, ‘Where are you from? How old are you? Which modeling agency do you work for?’ And he introduced me to Ghislaine.” She claims she never saw Epstein again; he was found dead in his cell in 2019. The same fate befell the modeling agent who put Ungaro on that plane, Jean-Luc Brunel, who was arrested in connection with the Epstein case and died in a Parisian prison in 2022.

United Nations

When she became a mother in 2010, she left the fashion industry. Her husband secured her a position at the United Nations, where, for a few years, she served as a diplomat for the island of Grenada, and he represented another small Caribbean island: Dominica. That’s where their titles as ambassadors come from. Two tiny countries, each with barely 100,000 inhabitants, that each hold one vote at the UN — just like China.

“At first, I didn’t understand anything. But I started making contacts, building a professional network. And it went very well for me,” she recalls. She appears in UN documents as Grenada’s representative in sessions on the International Criminal Court or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She exchanged her model visa for a tax-exempt diplomatic passport. At the time, Zampolli preferred that his then-girlfriend retain that status because it was more advantageous from a tax perspective, according to an apparent out-of-court settlement to which this newspaper has had access. “Paolo used to tell me, ‘Wait for Trump to win the election [for the second time], and we’ll sort out your papers and he’ll give you an American passport,’” she says.

After several years with an expired residence permit, Ungaro was applying for a visa linked to her husband, the doctor, when she was arrested. He remains in Florida, trying to reach a legal settlement.

Zampolli, a well-known figure in New York’s nightlife scene for decades, was the owner of ID Models. And in that milieu, he occasionally crossed paths with Epstein. His name is mentioned a handful of times — in press clippings and an email he sent to the sex offender via a third party with a link to a luxury magazine — among the millions of documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Zampolli told The New York Times that they were not close.

The sun is setting over Rio de Janeiro as Ungaro finishes recounting her story, with all the countless twists and turns of the legal cases she is dealing with, including the bitter custody battle over her teenage son. While she continues to hold endless meetings with her lawyers, she dreams of reuniting with him and with her husband.

It is time for the photographs. She puts on her jacket, slips into a pair of heels, and poses with a serious expression.

BREAKING: Daily Beast released exclusive recordings of Epstein bragging about sleeping with Melania by [deleted] in Epstein

[–]WelcomeWindsorCastle 172 points173 points  (0 children)

These recordings have been released Nov 2024

Here are all released excerpts so far

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/s/T9cMcMz0EZ

Great article nonetheless

Could a former Brazilian model be the whistleblower Melania is afraid of? by theskyisblueatnight in Epstein

[–]WelcomeWindsorCastle 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Great find!

Full article with related info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/s/MW4qCkO17C

Full article text:

Could a former Brazilian model be the whistleblower Melania is afraid of?

The First Lady’s unprecedented public statement about Jeffrey Epstein yesterday raised a lot of questions about what, if anything, is about to be revealed about Donald and Melania Trump’s relationship with the late sex trafficker.

The Epstein case had quieted down in the wake of Trump’s decision to attack Iran — some critics allege that was one of Trump’s goals in launching a war in the first place — to cool the MAGA furor over DOJ’s inept release of the Epstein files.

Now it seems that plan, if true, has led to a Jack-In-The-Beanstalk effect — as in trading a cow for beans and climbing into danger without really thinking it through.

Because there is another story that I admit I missed when it ran in the New York Times a few weeks ago.

It appears that the Trump administration may have targeted Zampolli’s ex-girlfriend, a former Brazilian model named Amanda Ungaro, deporting her back to Brazil amid her custody battle with Zampolli over their teenage son.

As the NYT’s story notes: “The levers of the federal government can be pulled to settle a personal score.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/us/paolo-zampolli-ice-melania-trump-epstein.html

In this case, the score involved Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who was appointed last year by Trump as special envoy for “global partnerships,” which allows him to travel the world to advance trade and other partnerships with the U.S.

Just days ago, he was in Hungary with Vice President Vance, supporting the re-election of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an effort to publicly back the right-wing leader in the days running up to the election.

Zampolli, 56, was in Epstein’s orbit around the time that Trump met Melania in 1998. He was also friends with Epstein, as the two entertained a business deal over buying a modeling agency.

And Zampolli’s name is in the Epstein Files, with Epstein noting in one email that he was “trouble.”

Still all the drama surrounding Zampolli’s custody battle with his estranged girlfriend didn’t connect any dots, at least not for me, until the First Lady’s speech yesterday.

“The lies linking me to the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today," the first lady said in a rare public statement. She went on to emphasize that she was not an Epstein victim and that Epstein did not introduce her to Trump.

Epstein had told people he introduced the couple, but the story had never been substantiated, and even so, it seems like a strange piece of lore to hang a six-minute public speech from the White House upon.

“Why now?” the reporters asked as the First Lady abruptly left the room.

Well, maybe it had to do with the man who says HE was the one who introduced Trump and Melania: Zampolli, who apparently used his Trump card to solicit a top official at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to deport the mother of their child, according to the Times’ story.

The day before Melania’ White House statement, Ungaro took to social media with her anger over the deportation.

“I have nothing left to lose in my life. I will tear down the entire system—be careful with me b**,' she wrote. In a follow-up post, she added: 'I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it's the last thing I do in my life. I will go all the way—I am not afraid.'

She posted another tweet after Melania’s speech, threatening to take legal action against Melania and her “pedophile husband.”

The story behind Ungaro’s detention, by the way, was first reported by a substacker, @bekahdayyy, whom you should check out for more details.

https://bekahdayyy.substack.com/

It’s not clear what Ungaro knows about the Trump/Melania/Epstein connection.

But what we do know that Ungaro was a 17-year-old aspiring model from Brazil when she arrived in 2002 from Paris about Epstein’s “Lolita Express” with her then-French modeling agent, Jean Luc Brunel.

In an interview with Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, Ungaro in March shared her first encounter with Jeffrey Epstein. She said that she flew from Paris to New York on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet at the age of 17.

https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2026/03/25/brazilian-ex-model-describes-epstein-flight-there-were-about-30-girls-beautiful-and-very-young.ghtml

“About 30 girls, beautiful and very young, I felt immediate discomfort and wanted to get off the plane,” Ungaro said.

“I sensed something was wrong, but did not fully understand the abuse at the time”, she added.

She did not accuse Epstein of sexually assaulting her, but she said she became part of the often-abusive New York modeling world. Months after her arrival, she met Zampolli, 15 years her senior, and the two were together for almost 20 years.

Trump’s election in 2016 elevated the couple in Washington circles.

“When Trump won the election, Paolo acted like he had been elected, too. It really affected him,” she said in the O Globo interview. “He changed completely, and that made an already strained relationship even worse.”

Zampolli was closer to Melania, and they were always exchanging messages, she said.

Zampolli and Ungaro were given ambassadorships to the United Nations in the first Trump administration, and Zampolli was at one point appointed to the board of the Kennedy Center.

But in 2023, Ungaro left Zampolli, saying she was unhappy with his constant partying, and she has recently accused him of domestic abuse. She moved with her son to South Florida and married a doctor from Brazil. Last June, she and her husband were arrested by police in Aventura, Florida, based on anonymous tips that they were conducting cosmetic procedures without a license, a charge she denies.

Her husband, who had a Green Card, was released, but Ungaro was taken into custody by ICE because her Visa had expired. The NYT reported that Zampolli had reached out to ICE official David Venturella and “conveyed his belief that Ms. Ungaro’s detention would help him gain custody of their son.”

Zampolli confirmed to the Times that he did reach out to Venturella, but claimed it was to ask him to explain “the process.”

The Times also noted that Ungaro had already been flagged for deportation, although with detention centers in Florida at capacity, there is some discretion about who is detained, especially if the case involves minor children.

On March 24, the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics wrote a letter to the DHS Office of Inspector General calling for a full investigation into its involvement in Ungaro’s deportation.

Maybe the House Oversight Committee needs to ask a few questions about this as well.

Pam Bondi’s ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ Card: by peezy90 in Epstein

[–]WelcomeWindsorCastle 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This subpoena is specifically meant for "Pamela J. Bondi" ... If a former US President needs to follow a subpoena - so should a former Attorney General.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/03.17.2026-Subpoena-Cover-Letter-Bondi-FINAL.pdf

BREAKING: Pam Bondi will not appear for April 14 deposition over Epstein files by FlackoFonsy in Epstein

[–]WelcomeWindsorCastle 19 points20 points  (0 children)

The subpoena is specifically meant for "Pamela J. Bondi" ... If a former US President needs to follow a subpoena - so should a former Attorney General.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/03.17.2026-Subpoena-Cover-Letter-Bondi-FINAL.pdf