Elisabetta Tai Ferretto, a 50-year-old Italian former model who was among the first women to publicly accuse Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse, has not been heard from since April 22 after vanishing in New York, The Sun reported. Her family in Italy raised the alarm after daily phone calls suddenly stopped.
Ferretto had traveled from the United States to the Veneto region of northern Italy at the start of April to visit her brother and parents. After returning to Manhattan, she maintained regular contact with relatives, until the line went silent. She was reported missing as an Italian citizen abroad in Rovigo, the Italian city where authorities were notified.
The disappearance raises uncomfortable questions at a moment when the broader Epstein case remains a live and politically charged matter. Ferretto went public in 2019 with graphic allegations about an encounter at Epstein's Manhattan home. Now she is gone, and the New York Police Department says it has no complaint reports on file related to her.
Ferretto, originally from northern Italy, has lived in New York since 2001. She said a modeling booker told her that Epstein could help her land a job as a Victoria's Secret model, a claim that echoes patterns described by other Epstein accusers over the years.
In her 2019 account, Ferretto described arriving at Epstein's Manhattan home in 2004 for what she believed was a professional meeting. Instead, she said, Epstein undressed in front of her.
She recalled her reaction in blunt terms:
"I thought he was preparing to have a massage, and that someone was about to come in to the room and give him a massage."
Ferretto said she "froze" before Epstein told her to approach and handed her a vibrator. What happened next, by her telling, was an act of desperate self-defense. She said she "grabbed the vibrator and threw it at his head."
"I mean, I don't know where it landed, I just blacked out and then I ran as fast as I could out of the room."
When she tried to leave, Ferretto said, a woman blocked her path. The woman's words, as Ferretto recounted them, carried a pointed warning about Epstein's connections.
"She told me that I couldn't just leave. She said that this man is important, that he is a friend of President Clinton."
That reference to President Clinton, made in the context of intimidating a young woman into silence, is the kind of detail that has kept the Epstein case politically radioactive for years. Ferretto's willingness to name names publicly in 2019 placed her squarely in the crosshairs of a story that powerful people on both sides of the Atlantic would prefer to see buried.
Ferretto's family grew alarmed when the daily calls they had come to expect simply stopped after April 22. They reported her missing through Italian authorities in Rovigo, flagging her status as an Italian citizen abroad.
The NYPD's response, however, has been notably thin. The department told The Sun that "there are no complaint reports on file" related to Ferretto. That statement leaves a conspicuous gap: it does not clarify whether an active missing-person investigation exists, whether any other agency has been contacted, or what, if anything, New York law enforcement is doing to locate a woman whose family says she has simply vanished.
The broader Epstein investigation has been marked by exactly this kind of institutional passivity. Epstein's own accountant and lawyer told Congress that the Department of Justice never once questioned them, a staggering omission for a case of this magnitude.
Whether the NYPD's statement reflects bureaucratic precision or institutional indifference, Ferretto's relatives are left with no answers and no confirmed point of contact in the city where she was last known to be.
Ferretto's disappearance lands amid an ongoing political fight over the Epstein files and the institutions responsible for investigating them. The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi over the release of Epstein-related documents, reflecting deep frustration in Congress with the pace and transparency of official disclosures.
Meanwhile, investigative efforts have expanded well beyond New York. New Mexico authorities have searched Epstein's Zorro Ranch for buried remains as part of a state truth commission, underscoring how far-reaching the case has become, and how many threads remain unresolved.
The pattern is consistent. Witnesses and accusers in the Epstein matter have faced pressure, intimidation, and institutional neglect for years. Ferretto's 2019 account described being physically blocked from leaving Epstein's home and warned about his political connections. Now, six years after going public, she has dropped off the map.
There is no confirmed evidence of foul play. There is also no confirmed evidence that anyone in an official capacity is actively looking for her in New York.
Several key facts remain unknown. What was Ferretto's last confirmed location after she returned to Manhattan? Which specific agency, if any, holds an active missing-person case? What happened in the days between her return from Italy and April 22, when contact ceased? None of these questions have public answers.
The Epstein case has also exposed failures overseas. British police allegedly looked the other way while Epstein kept victims in London flats, a reminder that institutional negligence in this case has never been confined to one country or one agency.
Ferretto was one of the first women to publicly accuse Epstein of sexual abuse. That took courage, the kind of courage that the public rightly expects institutions to protect. She described being lured to a meeting under false professional pretenses, confronted with a predator, and then warned by a handler that the man she had just fled was too powerful to cross.
She spoke anyway. And now her family cannot reach her.
Congressional leaders have pressed for broader transparency on the Epstein files, with Rep. James Comer noting that a DOJ briefing could have made a subpoena unnecessary, a sign that even among those demanding accountability, the process has been marked by friction and delay.
The public deserves to know what happened to Elisabetta Tai Ferretto. Her family deserves a straight answer from the city where she was last heard from. And the NYPD's claim that it has "no complaint reports on file" deserves scrutiny, not acceptance at face value.
When accusers of powerful men disappear and the authorities shrug, the system is telling you exactly whose interests it protects.
