By Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN - The red-headed real estate agent accused of spying for the Russians had a penchant for older men, the Daily News reported.
Anna Chapman, 28, told friends she was dating 60-year-old New Jersey businessman Michel Bittan.The two met at Russian hangout Mari Vanna in Gramercy, according to the paper.
"I didn't think it was exclusive on his part - he really loves hot women - but she enjoyed hanging with him," a friend of Bittan told the Daily News.
"I always thought she was very mysterious," salon owner Nadine Jannuzzi told the New York Post about her client. "She was very difficult to open up. I wanted to pull her out of her shell. This now all makes sense. It explains why she was so mysterious. It's the quiet ones you've got to worry about."
Chapman tried to get near billionaires socially in London while working at a hedge fund, the New York Post.
"She knew how to work it," said a male admirer who knew Chapman in London, where she claimed to have married French supermarket-chain president Vianney Mulliez, who on Wednesday denied even knowing her, the Post reported.
Federal officials claim she communicated with a Russian agent every Wednesday, sending information from her laptop to a van parked outside Manhattan locations — sometimes the Barnes & Noble on Greenwich and Warren streets in TriBeCa or at a Starbucks near Times Square.
