The release of files related to financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has revealed the names not only of his associates but also of the beneficiaries of his estate. A trust agreement drafted by Epstein two days before his death, identifies Karyna Shulyak, a dentist from Belarus, as his primary intended heir. She is the woman Epstein planned to marry and the last person to speak with him before he died. Epstein willed her tens of millions of dollars. Yet it remains unclear whether she ever received the money — or if she ever will.

Two days before his death, Epstein drafted a document listing his heirs

The latest and largest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files, released by the U.S. Department of Justice on January 30, included a trust agreement that functioned as the financier’s will. In the 32-page document, drafted two days before his death, Epstein specified who would inherit his fortune.

Epstein was found dead on August 10, 2019, in a New York jail cell where he was being held on charges of sex trafficking, including the trafficking of minors. His death was officially ruled a suicide, although conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist.

In 2019, Epstein’s net worth was estimated at nearly $600 million. In court documents from 2025, that valuation dropped to $127 million. Yet in his will, the financier allocated $288 million and several real estate properties, according to ABC News, which analyzed the document.

Under Epstein’s wishes, his estate was to be divided among roughly 40 beneficiaries. These included his brother Mark; his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell (currently serving a 20-year sentence for “recruiting” minors for sex with Epstein and his influential friends); and former employees, such as his personal pilot, Larry Visoski. The names of some beneficiaries in the document are redacted.

According to the trust agreement, Ghislaine Maxwell and Mark Epstein were each to inherit $10 million. Accountant Richard Kahn and lawyer Darren Indyke, who signed the agreement and served as executors, were designated $25 million and $50 million, respectively. But Epstein’s primary heir was identified as Karyna Shulyak — the woman the financier intended to marry, according to the agreement. She was to receive $100 million — half as a lump sum and half placed in a trust for lifetime monthly payments — as well as 48 diamonds, and Epstein’s diamond ring, as well as his real estate, including apartments in Paris and New York, a ranch in New Mexico, and Little St. James, Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean where he hosted parties.

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Epstein’s primary heir, Karyna Shulyak, is originally from Belarus

Karyna Shulyak’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein first emerged in the spring of 2020, when the New York Daily News reported that she was the last person Epstein spoke to before his death. According to The New York Times, he called her on the evening of August 9, 2019. The call lasted 15 minutes and was not recorded. When a guard asked whom he had called, Epstein replied that it was his mother (who had died in 2004). After the call, he returned to his cell, where he was found hanging the next morning.

Karyna Shulyak is originally from Belarus. She grew up in Minsk, where friends remember her as a shy and modest girl who studied dance, according to The Daily Mail. After high school, Shulyak entered the Belarusian State Medical University, according to Zerkalo. In 2009, at the age of 20, Shulyak traveled to the United States for the first time through the “Work and Travel” program, which allows foreign students to spend the summer working and traveling in America. Reports suggest she met Epstein that year or the following one.

They met shortly after Epstein’s conviction as a sex offender. At that time, nearly everyone had turned away from him except for Shulyak, an anonymous source told The Daily Mail in 2020. According to the source, Shulyak is a “very sincere, kind, decent person,” and she remained with Epstein not for money, but because she was “madly in love with him.”

Epstein paid for Shulyak’s dental studies at Columbia University (the specialty she had pursued in Belarus) and helped her obtain a work license, though she ultimately did not become a practicing dentist. He also financed expensive medical treatment for Shulyak’s mother in the U.S., the Daily Mail source said. As Belarusian journalists discovered, in the mid-2010s, Epstein repeatedly applied for visas to Belarus but never visited. He did, however, apparently buy an apartment in Minsk, transferred at least $100,000 to Shulyak’s parents, and hosted them several times in the United States. In return, they sent him holiday cards.

Shulyak may not have received her inheritance due to compensation ordered for Epstein’s victims

It remains unclear whether Shulyak knew about Epstein’s “masseuses” or was involved in his sex crimes. In the financier’s archive, there is a message from 2013 in which he admonished Shulyak for believing she had “the right to monitor who comes and goes” from his massage room. A source told The Daily Mail that those in Epstein’s circle nicknamed Shulyak “the Inspector” because she was allegedly “madly jealous over Epstein and was always investigating who he was in contact with.”

The New York Daily News, citing insiders, reported that Shulyak was never sexually exploited by Epstein and genuinely believed that he loved her. However, according to tabloid reports, she obtained permanent residency in the United States through a sham marriage with a woman in Epstein’s circle named Jennifer Kalin. Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Epstein’s victims, explained that fictitious same-sex marriages allowed the financier to keep the young women he liked in the country.

Law enforcement has not charged Shulyak in connection with the Epstein investigation.

As the New York Daily News reported, nothing in the final conversation between Epstein and Shulyak suggested that he intended to take his own life. After Epstein’s death, Shulyak sank into a depression, The Daily Mail wrote. When asked how she supported herself, a source for the paper speculated that she was living off savings that remained from her time with Epstein, all the while “hoping for his will.”

More than six years after Epstein’s death, Shulyak is believed to be living in New York. It remains unclear whether she has received an inheritance and, if so, in what amount. The New York Times notes that Epstein’s estate has significantly diminished following the payment of taxes and compensation to victims. Daniel Weiner, an attorney representing estate executors Richard Kahn and Darren Indyke, stated that no trust beneficiaries would receive “any money” until all claims against the estate — including compensation claims from Epstein’s victims — are fully satisfied. Weiner stated that Kahn and Indyke have already paid out $170 million.