Polish ‘call girl’ accused of conning banker lover out of £4m estate found dead in flat
A Polish “call girl” accused of conning her banker lover out of a massive chunk of his £18million estate by his brother in a bitter High Court fight has been found dead. Nightclub boss Magdalena Zalinska was being sued by Edi Truell over claims she got £4million from Danny Truell by “undue influence” before he died in 2019 aged 55.
The 44-year-old’s body was found at her flat in Clapham, South London, after police officers broke down the door.
Neighbours of Ms Zalinska had approached the officers who had been on a routine patrol as they were concerned about her welfare.
MailOnline reports that police are not treating the death of the divorced mother-of-two as suspicious, but unexpected.
She was at the centre of a bitter fight with the family of millionaire former Goldman Sachs banker Danny Truell, after his death from a neurological condition.
Mr Truell left Ms Zalinska more than £1million in his will and she insists that the pair had a “romantic and loving relationship” for 14 years.
City financier Edi claims that although she had a sexual relationship with his brother, she was his paid carer from 2012 and didn’t live with him.
Danny Truell was a lifelong Labour Party member and frequently faced Boris Johnson in debates when they were both studying at Balliol College, Oxford.
After graduating he went on to become a very successful fund manager, including running Goldman Sachs’ asset management arm.
In 2005 he moved to the science research charity the Wellcome Trust as its chief investment officer.
During his 12 year tenure at the charity he reportedly grew the assets under management from £12.3billion to £20.9billion.
He also allowed it to double the amount it donated a year, to more than £1billion.
He and Naomi, his wife of 16 years, divorced in 2011. The following year he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and this later became a form of motor neurone disease.
In the High Court, Mr Justice Michael Green said Mr Truell lived “an apparently frugal lifestyle” despite his considerable personal wealth.
He did not drive, have expensive hobbies nor go on many holidays, and lived in “a modest and poorly furnished basement and ground floor maisonette” near Clapham Junction, London.
The judge said that during his illness he was “dependent on alcohol”.
In his will, he described Ms Zalinska, who has also had struggles with alcohol, as his “partner and dependent”.
The battle between her and Mr Truell’s family is over a series of financial transfers to her before Mr Truell died.
These included £1.34million which was paid to a company through which she operated her London nightclub, Southwark Rooms.
There was around £1.366million on spending and withdrawals using his debit card, and £915,000 which went to her directly in electronic transfers.
He also transferred to her his interest in the flat she had previously rented from him in Clapham, where her body was discovered.
Lawyers for Eli say Ms Zalinska had also used her Southwark nightclub as a “front” to “extract” huge sums of money and that these have since disappeared.
The Truell’s barrister, Edward Hicks, told the judge at a court hearing last month that a key question at a trial would be if Danny and Ms Zalinska were in a “husband and wife” type relationship of it had been “marked by promiscuity” that he had not known about.
And he said that they had evidence that she was in relationships with other people.
Ms Zalinska’s former husband Wojtek Zalinski said he was flying to the UK from his home in Krakow, Poland, to help determine what had happened.
He denied claims that his ex-wife was a prostitute, and said: ‘That was absolute rubbish, she was never a call girl.
“Never. I do not know why such hurtful thing were said about her in the court. That is wrong and should not have been said. She is not here to defend herself now so I will do it.”
Mr Zalinski said he and his former wife had kept in contact despite divorcing 20 years ago and he last saw her a year ago.
