Jeffrey Epstein Survivor Tried to Contract an STD in Hopes of 'Killing' Disgraced Financier and Stopping His Abuse

A woman who says she was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein as a minor is speaking out for the first time about the horrifying ordeal she endured and the desperate lengths she went to to make it stop.

Roza Gilles told CNN's MJ Lee she "ran around New York City as a child trying to get an STD to kill a pedophile."

Gilles said her connection to Epstein began through a modeling agency tied to the financier, which sent her to his West Palm Beach, Fla., mansion for a photoshoot, and later led to a secretary job at his Florida Science Foundation.

She said the abuse began soon after.

"I froze," Gilles recalled to CNN, describing the moment another woman entered the room.

"And [another] woman comes over and starts unbuttoning my blouse. She takes it off, then she takes off my bra, and then she walks out," she added.

Gilles claimed she didn't realize until years later that Epstein was wearing an ankle monitor during that first alleged assault — a condition of his work-release sentence after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.

"He didn't stop what he was doing while convicted. He was doing the same thing," she told CNN.

Reflecting on the toll it took, she said, "He had no remorse. The things he was doing to me hurt me so much, and left the biggest scar, and I will never — I will never be able to move on from this, no matter how hard I try."

Gilles said she remembered thinking she was "going to die" if she ever came forward with her allegations.

That fear only deepened after she witnessed a man she believed was a sheriff's deputy having a friendly conversation with Epstein at his home before leaving without arresting him.

"After I saw that sheriff, I understood that no matter what you do, this man is never going to be arrested," she explained. "This man will never be stopped, and regardless of whether you scream and shout from the top of the universe, nobody would care."

That belief, Gilles said, drove her attempt to contract an STD in New York, explaining, "Because I didn't believe the government would ever stop him. That wasn't my job to stop him."

She also described spiraling emotionally during that period: "They saw me drink every night," she said of her modeling agency, adding, "I would just scratch myself until I bled. And, as I was spiraling out, as I was losing weight, my hair was falling out, I kept this secret inside me for so long."

Gilles has since relocated to the Midwest, where she met her husband and found a fresh start.