Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child

Last June, the man credited with introducing President Trump to his wife asked the administration for a favor.

Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent turned presidential special envoy, had learned that his Brazilian ex-girlfriend was in a Miami jail, arrested on charges of fraud at her workplace. They had been in a custody battle over their teenage son. Now he saw an opportunity.

He reached out to a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, explaining that his ex was in the country illegally, according to records obtained by The New York Times and a person familiar with the communications. Could she be put in ICE detention? That could help him get his son back.

The official, David Venturella, promptly called the agency’s Miami office to ensure that ICE agents would pick up the woman from the jail before she was released on bail, according to the records and a person with knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity to discuss it. During the call, Mr. Venturella noted that the case was important to someone close to the White House.

The woman, Amanda Ungaro, was placed in ICE custody and ultimately deported, an outcome that may well have happened regardless of Mr. Zampolli’s meddling. But the ICE official’s willingness to spring into action for a Trump ally — even one in a low-level, largely ceremonial role — reflects a recurring theme of the second Trump administration: The levers of the federal government can be pulled to settle a personal score.

Mr. Zampolli, 56, is known in Washington for flaunting his proximity to the Trumps. In this case, he used his clout to solicit help from an agency beset by allegations of unlawful overreach.

In an interview with The Times, Mr. Zampolli denied asking ICE to detain Ms. Ungaro or seeking any other favors. He said he merely asked Mr. Venturella to explain what was going on with her case.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement that Ms. Ungaro was detained and deported because she was on a long-expired visa and had been charged with fraud. “Any suggestion that she was arrested and removed for political reasons or favors is FALSE,” the statement said.

As the president’s special representative for global partnerships, Mr. Zampolli is a minor character in Mr. Trump’s Washington. But the role keeps him within photo-op range of the Trump family, cabinet secretaries and other prominent figures in and around the administration.

He throws parties at a sprawling D.C. townhouse where the walls are hung with pictures of him and the president, and an end table displays a copy of the first lady’s book, “Melania.”

His Instagram feed shows him trailing behind Mrs. Trump at the United Nations, standing beside Mr. Trump’s chief of staff and posing with his son-in-law Jared Kushner. “I am honored to have been a friend of the President for more than 30 years, a friend of the First Lady for 29 years,” reads one caption. It ends: “Loyalty is king.”

Mr. Zampolli and Mr. Trump were fixtures of New York City nightlife in the 1990s and, as Mr. Zampolli told The Times a decade ago, shared a common interest: “We both like beautiful things.”

For years, the men have told the story of how, one night at the Kit Kat Club in 1998, Mr. Zampolli introduced Mr. Trump to Melania Knauss, a model he had recruited from Slovenia.

In the city’s modeling scene, Mr. Zampolli also intersected with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who would later be accused of sexually abusing hundreds of girls and young women. The men once discussed buying a modeling agency together, and Mr. Zampolli’s name appears several times in the millions of Epstein documents recently released by the Justice Department. In one 2011 email, Mr. Epstein warned an Emirati businessman: “Be careful, zampoli is trouble. Lots.” He added, “He sells stories to the press.”