Accused of raping several models, Jean-Luc Brunel, a relative of the deceased American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, was found hanged on the night of Friday to Saturday. His body was discovered in his cell in the prison of Health in Paris, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The Paris prosecutor’s office indicated that an investigation into the causes of death had been opened and was entrusted to the 3rd judicial police district. Jean-Luc Brunel was arrested in December 2020 at Charles-de-Gaulle airport as he was preparing to leave for Dakar. He had been imprisoned after his indictment for “rape of a minor over 15 years old” and “sexual harassment” with several former top models. Facts he disputed. He was again indicted at the end of June 2021 for another case of “rape of a minor over 15 years old”.
Aged 76 at the time of his death, he had also been placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for the facts of “aggravated human trafficking to the detriment of minor victims for the purpose of sexual exploitation”.
“His distress was that of a 75-year-old man crushed by a media-judicial system on which it would be time to wonder. Jean-Luc Brunel has continued to proclaim his innocence. He has multiplied his efforts to prove it, ”said his lawyers, Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain, on Saturday.
close to Jeffrey Epstein
As part of the Epstein case, Jean-Luc Brunel was accused of having played the tout for the former billionaire. He would have dangled a career in modeling to young girls from modest backgrounds. Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in his New York prison in early August 2019, was charged in July 2019 in the United States for the organization, between 2002 and 2005 at least, of a network of sexually exploited young girls.
Jean-Luc Brunel made a name for himself mainly in the 1970s and 1980s by founding the prestigious Karin Models agency in 1978, before launching MC2 Model Management in the United States.