21 Things To Know About Karyna Shuliak, Epstein’s Girlfriend Who Dethroned Ghislaine Maxwell In His Will

Epstein is dead. Maxwell is in prison. Many victims are still seeking justice. Meanwhile, the woman who replaced Maxwell as the primary beneficiary of his estate just completed an advanced degree at Columbia Dental School and has never said a word publicly.

Karyna Shuliak is not a name most people knew before 2026. She was not named in civil lawsuits. She existed at the edges of the Epstein story, mentioned occasionally in reporting about his will and then quickly forgotten.

But she is arguably the most important person in Jeffrey Epstein’s life that flies under the radar. Her name appears 40,144 times in the DOJ documents. She managed his properties, coordinated his staff, and traveled to his islands while his trafficking network was active. She was supposed to get more money than Ghislaine Maxwell in his will. When he made his final phone call from a Manhattan jail cell, he told prison guards he was calling his mother. His mother was already dead. The call was to her.

Here is what the documents and existing reporting tell us about Karyna Shuliak’s role in Jeffrey Epstein’s life, based on DOJ documents and news reports. Shuliak has not been charged with any crime and hasn’t made any public statements.

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1. Shuliak grew up in Minsk, Belarus, and was 20 years old when she first made contact with Epstein. He had just finished a 13-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor. She was a dental student at the Belarusian State Medical University. He paid for her visa and her flights to New York.

2. Epstein introduced himself to her under a false name. In early correspondence he used the alias “Vassily” or “Russian Bear Vasily Malikov,” concealing his identity as a convicted sex offender. He also coached her on how to enter the United States. His advice: present yourself as a cleaning lady to secure a visa.

3. By early 2012, she was sending him messages at 3 AM. One reads: “I miss you badly. Each part of you. How I wish you were here.” The timestamp is consistent across the early correspondence. She was waiting. He responded when it suited him.

4. In a 2012 email, she addressed his sexual involvement with other people directly. She wrote that she understood his “need for novelty” but that it felt “somewhat dirty” to her, and asked only to be kept away from it. She ended: “I will stay with you no matter what, as long as you are happy. I love you.”

5. On February 11, 2013, Shuliak sent Epstein links to pornographic content. His response was about the ages of the women in it. His message: “please don’t send me porno links, I don’t know how old these girls are and I want to be careful that they are all over 18.” His stated concern was not the nature of the material. It was uncertainty about the ages.

6. By mid-2013, Shuliak had raised specific fears with Epstein: the age gap between them, his preference for younger women, and what would happen to their relationship in ten years. His response was to name those fears in a list and tell her to stop crying and be grateful. He wrote that he was “trying as much as I can to be understanding of your concerns” and then itemized them without addressing a single one. She should be making “a commitment to try harder” instead of crying, he said. Her reply: “The bottom line is me not learning, me not doing anything new, therefore it gets not interesting for you, am I right?” She absorbed exactly the message he intended.

7. After Columbia’s College of Dental Medicine rejected Karyna Shuliak’s application on February 16, 2012, she was admitted by May 2012 through an “irregular process” that coincided with fundraising for the school by Epstein. Epstein donated $100,000 in August 2012 to a fund named after the dean, Ira Lamster, and $50,000 in 2014 to the school’s annual fund in Shuliak’s name, with total donations from Epstein amounting to $210,000. He also threw it out there that he was considering a $5 to $10 million donation to the school as well. Read more about this scandal here.

8. When her student visa expired in 2013, Epstein arranged a sham marriage to secure her U.S. citizenship. He connected her with a woman who had dated Kimbal Musk, brother of Elon Musk. They married in October 2013. Shuliak received a Green Card in 2015 and U.S. citizenship in 2018. She filed for divorce the same year citizenship was granted.

9. On the day of her naturalization interview in 2018, Epstein’s immigration lawyer sent him a celebratory message. The message from lawyer Arda Beskardes: “now that she’s an american you should throw her a big ole party. with a mechanical bull, red white and blue balloons, and deep fried snickers bars on flag toothpicks.”

10. She was a regular passenger on Epstein’s private jet. Epstein also flew her commercial, for example, on November 1, 2012, she flew Delta from New York (JFK) to San Juan, then connected on American Airlines to St. Thomas; and on March 14, 2013, she flew American Airlines from New York (JFK) to St. Thomas.

11. Epstein sent $20,000 to $25,000 per month to her parents in Belarus. Her mother had breast cancer. He covered her full treatment at a New York clinic in 2013 and set her mother up with her own credit card. Her parents later moved into a high-end apartment in Minsk.

12. From January through November 2014, Shuliak spent nearly $295,000 on a single Epstein-covered credit card. Charges included frequent dermatologist visits, regular hair, nail, and massage appointments, Bloomingdale’s shopping, and daily tabs at cafes and restaurants.

13. By November 2015, she was working directly alongside Lesley Groff, one of Epstein’s most senior executive assistants. There are various emails about operational matters.

14. In July 2016, she was the person Epstein routed his semen storage paperwork through. Shuliak forwarded an inquiry from California Cryobank to a staff member with the note: “Jeffrey asked for you to fill out all the forms attached below.” The staff member confirmed he had already signed the initial paperwork. She had access to his most sensitive personal matters.

15. By April 2017, she was managing the housing and cleaning schedules for what she called “the girls’ apartments” in Epstein’s Manhattan building. In a formal email to housekeeping staff, she listed four apartments at 301 East 66th Street. Her own unit was one of them. She invoked Epstein’s authority: “Mr. Epstein was clear that the girls’ apartments should be cleaned once a week.” The phrase “the girls’ apartments” is her own language.

16. People in Epstein’s orbit nicknamed her “the Inspector.” The name came from her jealousy and her habit of monitoring his activities and communications. One source described her to the Daily Mail as “fiercely loyal.”

17. In December 2014, she replaced Ghislaine Maxwell as a named beneficiary of Epstein’s Butterfly Trust. Maxwell was formally removed. Shuliak was added in her place. This happened four years before Maxwell’s arrest and five years before Epstein’s death. Epstein had been restructuring his estate around her for years before he signed his final will.

18. On August 8, 2019, two days before his death, Epstein signed a trust leaving Shuliak the majority of his estate. The 1953 Trust included a 700-square-meter Paris apartment, a 7-story penthouse in New York, Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, and his private islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which sold after his death for a combined $60 million. He also left her 48 diamonds and a 32-carat diamond ring valued at $1.2 million that he wrote he had given her “in contemplation of marriage.”

19. Epstein’s final phone call on August 10, 2019 was to Shuliak, but he told prison guards he was calling his mother. His mother was already dead. No recording was made. The call lasted approximately 15 to 30 minutes; he was found dead in his cell shortly after.

20. Shuliak has largely avoided the public eye since Epstein’s death. She was last photographed publicly in New York on May 30, 2024. She earned her Doctor of Dental Surgery from Columbia in 2015 and completed a certificate in advanced dentistry there in 2025, with video footage of her at the graduation ceremony on the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine YouTube.

21. Shuliak likely won’t receive any of the inheritance. American and French authorities froze the estate. More than 170 victims have been compensated thus far, and no one receives anything until receives anything until all victim claims are satisfied in full.