BOMBSHELL CLAIM

Melania and Trump’s Matchmaker Accused of Horrific Attack

Paolo Zampolli, 56, is accused of drugging and violently attacking a 33-year-old model.

The modeling agent who claims he introduced Donald Trump to Melania has been accused of drugging and raping a woman more than 20 years his junior.

Paolo Zampolli, 56, is named in a lawsuit filed by tech entrepreneur Victoria Drake, 33, accusing him of sexually assaulting her as she lay unconscious at his New York townhouse in October 2023.

Drake, who lives in Chicago, began moving in Trump-world circles in 2019 after she was invited to a New Year’s event at Mar-a-Lago with her then-boyfriend, Ross Chaifetz, who manages a private equity firm. His billionaire father, Richard, who co-owns the Portland Trail Blazers, is believed to have been a member of the president’s Florida club and, in 2018, bought a $9.4 million condo on the 87th floor of Trump Tower Chicago.

The Daily Beast’s sister investigative Substack, PunchUp, understands Drake, a model and businesswoman, attended dozens of private parties, dinners, and fundraising events attended by Trump, and shared pictures of herself rubbing shoulders with the president and first lady. She stopped attending Mar-a-Lago as frequently after splitting with her boyfriend in early 2023.

Drake says she saw Zampolli—a close friend of Trump—at Mar-a-Lago several times but did not speak to him.

Zampolli has served as Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships since March 2025, but their relationship stretches back decades. Zampolli has long claimed to have introduced Donald and Melania Trump at a 1998 Fashion Week party he hosted at New York’s Kit Kat Club. Melania said in her own memoir that she met her future husband at the party, but does not credit Zampolli with introducing them.

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In an extraordinary press conference earlier this year, she denied that the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had introduced her to Trump—leading Zampolli to offer to testify before Congress to back up her story.

Now he is facing a rape allegation from Drake. She alleges that on October 5, 2023, Zampolli was at the exclusive Zero Bond private members’ club in Manhattan when he approached her and said he recognized her from Mar-a-Lago.

They exchanged phone numbers and later agreed to meet at Zampolli’s home in Gramercy Park, she claims. While there, Drake alleges Zampolli gave her a drink, and that she then lost consciousness. She claims she briefly regained consciousness to find herself naked in a bed as 5-foot-11 Zampolli sexually assaulted her, with his hands around her neck.

Drake alleges she “did not and could not consent,” and awoke naked the following morning with bruising on her hips and legs, and was unable to find her clothes.

The complaint, first reported on by Inner City Press, alleges she reported the incident to the NYPD the next day before being taken by ambulance to Lenox Health Greenwich Hospital, where she underwent sexual-assault and drug-facilitated-assault examinations.

There is no evidence Zampolli was ever arrested, and he has denied that he was. Police later closed the complaint, Zampolli said. The NYPD was asked why the investigation was not pursued, and who had taken that decision, but did not respond.

Zampolli denies Drake’s allegations. The allegations have not been adjudicated, and Zampolli has not been found liable.

And Zampolli, who is an Italian citizen, also filed a criminal complaint against Drake in Rome on April 21, accusing her of making false and defamatory allegations that he sexually assaulted her before her lawsuit was filed, documents obtained by PunchUp show.

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Zampolli claims the allegations are part of an attempt to extort or damage him. He told PunchUp that Drake had not yet formally served him with the New York lawsuit. He said his lawyers would ask a judge to pause the case if she does, or seek to have it dealt with alongside the criminal complaint he filed against Drake in Rome in April. Zampolli said he believes the dispute belongs in Italy because his complaint alleges Drake tried to extort him while he was there, and because he filed his case first.

Zampolli said he plans to countersue Drake for $100 million, whom he claimed was “out of her mind,” over her “frivolous accusation,” but said he had not done so because he had been too busy helping with a “delegation” of “business people” who had been “in town.” When asked to say which delegation that was, he did not respond.

Zampolli also told PunchUp that he had not discussed the lawsuit with the White House. “We are slightly busier than engaging with personal attacks on people who serve the president or are close to the president,” he said. “We don’t discuss these things, especially when there is an ongoing investigation.”

Zampolli was named several times in the Epstein files. An FBI memo records a former Epstein assistant telling investigators that Zampolli—whose name was misspelled “Zempoli”—had been trying to buy the Elite Model Management agency with Epstein.

The same witness also claimed Epstein introduced Donald and Melania, as the Beast reported earlier this year. The claim has not been independently corroborated, and Melania firmly denied it in her press conference in April.

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“Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump,” she said. “I met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998. This initial encounter with my husband is documented in detail in my book, Melania.

“The first time I crossed paths with Epstein was in the year 2000, at an event Donald and I attended together. At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings.”

None of the released files establish wrongdoing by Zampolli in connection with Epstein, and Zampolli has never been accused of participating in Epstein’s crimes.

Zampolli is also locked in a bitter custody dispute with his Brazilian former partner Amanda Ungaro, 41, who has accused him of using his connections to help get her detained by ICE.

Ungaro, a former model who was recruited at 17 to the U.S. by Epstein and later also socialized with Zampolli and the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago, spent three-and-a-half months in immigration detention last year before being deported. Zampolli has denied involvement in her detention, while DHS has denied that political influence played any role, as the Beast previously reported.

PunchUp has contacted the White House and the State Department for comment. They did not respond.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

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