At a luxury estate in the rolling hills of Tuscany, Italy, Natalia Chernysheva claims she woke in agony, her body bruised and memory fractured after a night she could not fully recall.
It was November 2020, and she says she had been staying with her then-boyfriend, wealthy tech mogul Serg Bell, at the Renieri di Montalcino estate, a sprawling property surrounded by dense forest and miles from any public road, with only his assistant for company.
Disoriented and searching for answers, she says she turned to the villa’s surveillance system.
‘When I woke up the next day with pain in my body, I remember something very, very bad happened… but I just couldn’t remember,’ she told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
‘So that’s when I checked the cameras.’
What she saw, she claimed, was horrifying. An emotional Chernysheva said: ‘Those pictures… I could see them in my head. But when I saw it captured on the cameras… my hands were shaking.’
The footage allegedly showed Bell grabbing her by the neck and strangling her before stepping back and adopting a martial arts stance. He then moved in again, striking and kicking her as she lay on the floor until she lost consciousness. The Daily Mail has not viewed the footage.
The alleged incident, detailed in a lawsuit filed by Chernysheva against Bell in Florida, was just one of many savage beatings she claims she endured during their six-year relationship.
After the alleged attack, it is claimed in the lawsuit that Bell calmly bent down to tie his shoelaces before walking away, leaving his assistant, who allegedly did not intervene, to lift her onto a couch.
‘That showed me how cruel Serg actually is,’ Chernysheva told the Daily Mail.
In the suit, Chernysheva, 42, alleges Bell, 54, exerted near-total control over her life – monitoring her spending, restricting her movements and isolating her from friends and family while making her financially dependent on him.
The document claims he enforced that control with violence, with the abuse spanning the globe – from Paris to Palm Beach, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.
‘[Bell] made me believe I couldn’t leave because there was nothing beyond him; life is him. He put that in my mind from the beginning.’
The lawsuit describes how she finally decided to break free from the relationship after an alleged attack in 2022 on the day she told Bell she was pregnant after In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), which she claims led to a miscarriage days later.
‘It seems so simple [to leave], but it’s not,’ Chernysheva told the Daily Mail. ‘In reality, it’s the most impossible thing when you are in so deep and trapped with someone.’
Bell, born in the Soviet Union and now a Singapore citizen, founded several companies including Swiss cybersecurity firm Acronis, once valued at $4 billion. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 and is no longer associated with the company.
Hellbound and Down 