Woman Says She Begged Hugh Hefner To Report Her Epstein Trafficking Ordeal to the FBI, Only for the Bureau To Bury the Tip for Over a Decade
‘Hef was trying to keep us all safe.’
A woman who says Jeffrey Epstein trafficked her has revealed that she begged Hugh Hefner to report her ordeal to the FBI in 2005, only for the bureau to ignore the tip for over a decade. According to Mint, Audra Lynn Christiansen, Playboy’s Miss October 2003, claims she approached Hefner at the Playboy Mansion and asked him to use his influence to get authorities to take her allegations seriously.
Hefner reportedly called the FBI multiple times on her behalf, but the bureau didn’t follow up until 2020, 15 years later and after Epstein’s death. The details come from an amended complaint filed in May by 32 Epstein victims in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. According to the lawsuit, Christiansen told Hefner that Epstein had abused and trafficked her when she was 23.
She believed that if someone as powerful as Hefner made the report, the FBI would act. Instead, the bureau allegedly buried the tip, only reaching out to Christiansen in October 2020 after Epstein had already died in federal custody. The complaint includes a 2020 FBI report of a call where Christiansen said she was introduced to Epstein by her agents and that he wanted to meet her after her Playboy shoot was published.
Christiansen’s story adds to the scrutiny around the FBI’s poor handling of the Epstein case
Her story is just one of many that have surfaced in recent years about the FBI’s handling of Epstein-related tips. The lawsuit alleges that the bureau failed to act on multiple reports about Epstein’s abuse dating back to 1996. In June, the FBI tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the agency wasn’t “required to investigate every complaint” it received. The case is still pending.
The timing of Hefner’s reported calls is particularly damning. In 2008, Epstein struck a controversial plea deal in Florida, pleading guilty to state charges related to soliciting prostitution from a minor. He served much of his sentence under a work-release arrangement, a deal that has since faced intense scrutiny. Federal authorities arrested him again in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges involving underage girls, but he died in jail before the case went to trial.
Hefner died in 2017. Former FBI special agent Jennifer Coffindaffer, who reviewed the case, said the bureau’s 15-year delay in following up has “no excuse.” According to Complex, Coffindaffer acknowledged that the FBI was focused on counterterrorism and public corruption after September 11, but she rejected that as a justification. “Somehow, this got back-burnered, and it should have never happened that it would take so long for this investigation to follow through,” she said.
Christiansen’s experience with the FBI didn’t end in 2020
She said she contacted the bureau again that year after her family received threats, even hiring an attorney to secure a meeting. According to her, the FBI still declined to speak with them. “My attorney was blown away; they didn’t want to hear from me,” she said.
She also claimed that other Playmates had encounters with Epstein or people in his orbit but remain afraid to come forward. “I was not the only Playmate that had issues with perpetrators Epstein or otherwise,” she said. “They are too afraid to step forward, but it was a big deal back then. Hef was trying to keep us all safe.”
Hefner’s own murky past complicates things
While Christiansen’s account paints him as someone who tried to help, he’s also faced serious allegations of his own. In 2022, the docuseries Secrets of Playboy accused him of coercion, drugging, and sexual misconduct. Playboy responded by distancing the modern company from its founder, stating that “today’s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy.”
CBS News states that in February 2026, his widow, Crystal Hefner, filed complaints alleging that Hugh M. Hefner Foundation possesses thousands of scrapbooks containing lewd photos of women and “possibly” underage girls. The scrapbooks, which date back to the 1960s, reportedly contain images taken before, during, and after sexual encounters.
Crystal Hefner claims she was removed as president of the foundation after voicing concerns about the materials. She said the photos aren’t from Playboy magazines but rather private moments chronicled behind closed doors. The current location of the scrapbooks is unknown, but she was told they could be in storage facilities in California or even inside private residences where they’re being digitized.
Gloria Allred, the attorney representing Crystal Hefner, said the foundation hasn’t confirmed whether the scrapbooks contain child pornography. She also revealed that Hugh Hefner’s personal diary, which allegedly includes graphic details about sexual encounters and even the tracking of menstrual cycles, could be in the foundation’s possession.
The Hefner family had pushed back against the allegations
In a statement, Hugh Hefner’s sons, Marston and Cooper, said they’ve reviewed the scrapbooks extensively over the years and have “never seen inappropriate images of minors.” They described the materials as a historical record of their father’s life and said claims of this magnitude should be supported by evidence, not “implication without proof.”
Christiansen’s story highlights the broader failures in the Epstein case. Survivors continue to press for accountability and the release of government records, many of which have been heavily redacted. Christiansen herself has accused the Justice Department of temporarily exposing a detail in her FBI records that made her identifiable as a former Playmate. She said it took media intervention to have the information redacted again.
(Featured images: Nicolas Richoffer, Stephen Ogilvy)
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