{"id":2859,"date":"2026-03-21T19:14:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2859"},"modified":"2026-03-21T19:14:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:14:35","slug":"trump-ally-who-introduced-president-to-melania-denies-calling-ice-to-deport-an-ex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2859","title":{"rendered":"Trump ally who introduced president to Melania denies calling ICE to deport an ex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paolo Zampolli, the man who has long been credited as introducing then-New York City nightlife fixture Donald Trump to future\u00a0first lady Melania, routinely touts his connections to the president on\u00a0social media.<\/p>\n

So when the former modeling agent-turned-government official learned his Brazilian ex-girlfriend had been arrested in Miami last year, he allegedly called a top official at\u00a0Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u00a0to ensure she would be placed in federal custody.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0Zampolli reached out to David Venturella, a former veteran of private prison firm Geo Group who is now a\u00a0high-ranking ICE official\u00a0overseeing immigration detention centers, as well as Corey Lewandowski, a close Trump ally working as a\u00a0top adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.<\/p>\n

Zampolli, who was reportedly engaged in a legal battle with Amanda Ungaro over the custody of their teenage son, has denied asking ICE to detain her or for any other favors from the administration. A spokesperson for Homeland Security said \u201cany suggestion that she was arrested and removed for political reasons or favors is FALSE.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether his efforts worked, though Zampolli\u2019s ex was moved into ICE custody and deported shortly after his alleged call to Venturella, according to\u00a0The Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Paolo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Paolo Zampolli has denied asking ICE to detain the mother of his child following The New York Times\u2019 reporting that he sought the help of a top official at the agency (Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the alleged account \u2014 citing records and people familiar with the request \u2014 appears to show how Trump\u2019s well-connected allies can try to use his administration for score-settling and political favors.<\/p>\n

The Independent\u00a0<\/em>has requested comment from the White House.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Melania Trump told\u00a0The Independent\u00a0<\/em>she \u201chas no knowledge of, nor involvement in, the personal affairs of Mr. Zampoli and Ms. Ungaro.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFurthermore, Mrs. Trump has had no contact or engagement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Zampolli and Trump have both shared the story about the president\u2019s introduction to Melania at a Manhattan nightclub 1998, when she was a model recruited by Zampolli from her home country Slovenia. He sponsored her immigration though an H-1B visa at the time.<\/p>\n

His connections to New York\u2019s modeling scene have also put him in close connection with Jeffrey Epstein, and Zampolli\u2019s name appears several times in the massive tranche of documents released by the Department of Justice in connection with criminal investigations into the late sex offender.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe careful, Zampoli is trouble. Lots,\u201d Epstein\u00a0wrote in a 2011 email, according to the files. \u201cHe sells stories to the press.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with\u00a0The Times<\/em>, Zampolli denied having a significant relationship with Epstein, noting that his name appears far fewer times than other high-profile figures whose names have been scrutinized in the aftermath of the Epstein files\u2019 release.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least I was included, because if you\u2019re not on the list, you\u2019re a loser, right?\u201d he told the newspaper.<\/p>\n

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\"Zampolli<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Zampolli introduced Donald Trump to Melania in 1998 after the former modeling agent discovered her in Milan (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zampolli, a longtime friend of the president, has been rewarded with political appointments in both his administrations.<\/p>\n

Last year, Trump appointed Zampolli as a \u201cUnited States Special Representative for Global Partnerships,\u201d and Zampolli was named to the Kennedy Center\u2019s Board of Trustees in 2020.<\/p>\n

In his latest role, Zampolli has defended Russia\u2019s reentry into global sports competitions, and he brought a miniature version of Arturo Di Modica\u2019s Wall Street\u00a0Charging Bull\u00a0<\/em>sculpture to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.<\/p>\n

The White House similarly came under scrutiny last year following\u00a0the arrest of Bruna Ferreira, the mother of press secretary Karoline Leavitt\u2019s nephew.<\/p>\n

That incident, which placed the family of a key official in the Trump administration within the president\u2019s mass deportation efforts, also raised questions about whether people with close connections to the White House turned to ICE to\u00a0get involved with a family matter.<\/p>\n

Ferreira, who has also been engaged in a custody battle with her son\u2019s father, was arrested in November and remained in ICE detention for nearly a month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paolo Zampolli, the man who has long been credited as introducing then-New York City nightlife fixture Donald Trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2861,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions\/2861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}