Jean-Luc Brunel, a former French modeling agent arrested in December 2020 on charges of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, was found hanged in his cell in Paris on Friday.
Brunel’s name appeared in a US inquiry into the case of American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, accused in July 2019 of organizing a network of sexual exploitation of women. A month later, the businessman was also found dead in his cell – according to the autopsy, he committed suicide.
Brunel, who was a friend of Epstein and founded a modeling agency with the American billionaire, was arrested in December 2020 at Charles de Gaulle airport as he was about to fly to Dakar, Senegal. He has been accused of sexual harassment and rape of minors aged between 15 and 18 in France – which he has always denied.
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the cause of death.
US court documents suggest that Brunel smuggled girls into Epstein’s sexual exploitation network, sending them from France to the US and promising them, in return, modeling contracts.
Virginia Giuffre, one of the main whistleblowers in Epstein’s case and pivot in the scandal involving Britain’s Prince Andrew, said she was forced to have sex with Brunel.
The Frenchman was also considered a witness to acts of “aggravated trafficking in persons, to the detriment of minor victims for the purpose of sexual exploitation”.
14 year old girls
Jeffrey Epstein worked at investment bank Bear Stearns for six years before starting his company in 1982 to manage the wealth of very wealthy clients.
His circle of friends and acquaintances included prominent figures including former US Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Britain’s Prince Andrew and Leslie Wexner, business mogul and owner of Victoria’s Secret and other retail brands. .
The businessman was accused of sex trafficking minors and criminal conspiracy to traffic minors to sexually exploit them, two charges punishable by a total of 45 years in prison.
According to the indictment, he allegedly took teenagers, some of them as young as 14, to his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005, “to participate in sexual acts with him, after which he gave them hundreds of dollars in cash”.
“It also paid some of its victims to recruit more girls to be abused,” the prosecution pointed out. Epstein denied the allegations.
His girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted by US courts in December last year of helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
