The last person Jeffrey Epstein called before his death was his “favorite” girlfriend. Six years later, she was treating dental patients who had no idea she was closely linked to the world’s most notorious sex trafficker.
Dr. Karyna Shuliak, who was the infamous sex offender’s girlfriend for nearly eight years, was revealed to have worked as a part-time dentist in New York City earlier this year, according to The New York Times.
One patient, Yoonhae Kim, was treated by Shuliak twice—once in December and a second time in February. However, Kim didn’t realize who Shuliak was until after seeing her picture in the Epstein files.
“I was so upset,” Kim told the Times. “I just couldn’t believe it. Of all the things that happened to me, I didn’t win the lottery. I met Epstein’s girlfriend.”
Shuliak, 37, first met Epstein in March 2011, after moving to New York on a student visa and attempting to finish the dental education that she had started in her native Belarus.
She was introduced to Epstein through one of his female victims, and the sex criminal told Shuliak he would help her accomplish her dream of becoming a dentist.
Shuliak pushed back against Epstein for a time, seemingly upset by the financier’s behavior—which may have included his pleading guilty to a charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida.
However, she changed her mind and accepted Epstein’s help in 2012, after he had treated her to a variety of fancy and expensive outings, according to files shared by the Department of Justice.
After she failed to get into the College of Dental Medicine at Columbia University, Epstein tapped his own dentist, Dr. Thomas J. Magnani, to pull strings for Shuliak, given his status as a powerful alumnus of the program.
Epstein also offered up to a $10 million donation to the school, but eventually only donated around $210,000, the Times reported.
One file released by federal prosecutors revealed that Magnani and Dr. James Fine, an administrator at the dental school, tipped Shuliak off about what she would encounter on the school’s admissions test before she took it.
After Shuliak passed the test, Epstein offered to pay the tuition for her three-year program and flew out her mother to New York from Belarus.
Epstein made his last phone call to Shuliak before he was found dead in his prison cell on Aug. 10, 2019 in what was officially determined to be a suicide. Her lawyer, Maurice Secarz, told the Times that Epstein had advised her to find another place to stay and “to be strong.”
In 2023, Shuliak returned to New York to pursue a postdoctoral dental program at Columbia so she could be licensed in the state. And once again, Magnani and Fine came to her aid.
She graduated from the program in May 2025 and received her New York dental license six months later. Soon after, she accepted a job opportunity as a part-time dentist in downtown Brooklyn, a dentist at the practice told the Times.
Shuliak’s last day at the dental office was Feb. 12, the Times reported. However, her lawyer declined to tell the newspaper whether she had gotten another dental job.
