Ex-Modeling Agent and Epstein Associate Found Dead in a Paris Jail

PARIS — A former French modeling agent who had been charged with the rape of minors and was suspected of scouting younger girls for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was discovered lifeless in his Paris jail cell, a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor mentioned on Saturday, in what seemed to be a suicide.

Jean-Luc Brunel, 75, was discovered hanging in a single day in his cell at La Santé, a jail in southern Paris, based on a French official, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of an investigation had been opened. Mr. Brunel’s loss of life echoed that of Mr. Epstein, who hanged himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 whereas awaiting trial.

“His choice was not guided by guilt however by a deep sense of injustice,” his legal professionals mentioned in an announcement, including that Mr. Brunel had “by no means stopped claiming his innocence.”

Mr. Brunel had been charged with raping minors over 15 and sexual harassment, and he was positioned in pretrial detention in 2020. He was additionally below investigation for human trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation, as a part of a broader French inquiry into potential offenses dedicated in France in connection to the Epstein scandal.

His loss of life was the newest in a collection of developments in that scandal. This week, Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, settled a lawsuit introduced by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused the British royal of raping her when she was a teen. In December, Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s former companion, was convicted of conspiring with him to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage women.

Mr. Brunel carved out a profitable profession as a modeling agent in France within the Nineteen Seventies, earlier than increasing his portfolio to the USA, the place he met and befriended Mr. Epstein. The 2 usually traveled collectively and socialized in the identical circles earlier than having a falling out because the sex-trafficking accusations in opposition to Mr. Epstein emerged.

A minimum of one in every of Mr. Epstein’s accusers has mentioned that Mr. Brunel used his place as a modeling scout to obtain minors for Mr. Epstein, who owned an house in an upscale Parisian neighborhood and traveled often to France.

In filings in a federal courtroom in New York, Ms. Giuffre mentioned that Mr. Brunel would supply modeling jobs to ladies — some as younger as 12 — and take them to the USA to “farm them out to his mates, particularly Epstein.”

However Mr. Brunel has confronted direct accusations of abuse himself. Ms. Giuffre mentioned that Mr. Epstein sexually trafficked her to Mr. Brunel on “quite a few events and in quite a few locations,” together with the south of France, based on courtroom information.

Thysia Huisman, a former Dutch mannequin, accused Mr. Brunel of drugging and raping her in Paris in 1991. In an interview in 2020, she mentioned someday when she was staying with him, he had “harassed” her and “made sexual remarks.”

She continued, “I feel he put one thing in my drink — 50 minutes later it occurred.”

A few of the claims in opposition to Mr. Brunel have been blocked by statutory cut-off dates for rape instances, which in France is 20 years. However Ms. Huisman, who was conscious of the statute of limitations in her case, mentioned she had hoped “to encourage different victims to return ahead.”

However the loss of life of Mr. Brunel has put an finish to the costs in opposition to him.

Anne-Claire Lejeune, a lawyer who represents Ms. Huisman in addition to different accusers, informed the French information media on Saturday that she was annoyed not “to have the ability to get hold of justice, as was the case for the victims of Epstein.”