Jeffrey Epstein appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla., July 30, 2008. Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent close to the late US financier was found dead Saturday in his cell in his France.
Uma Sanghvi / Palm Beach Post via AP, File
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Uma Sanghvi / Palm Beach Post via AP, File
Jeffrey Epstein appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla., July 30, 2008. Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent close to the late US financier was found dead Saturday in his cell in his France.
Uma Sanghvi / Palm Beach Post via AP, File
PARIS – A modeling agent close to disgraced American financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead Saturday in a French cell where he is being held during an investigation into child rape. minors and trafficking minors for sexual exploitation, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Victims of alleged abuse describe that the agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, will never face trial. They described his death as a double blow, after Epstein committed suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
Paris police are investigating Brunel’s death, the prosecutor’s office said. The circumstances of his death have not been made public and Brunel’s lawyers have not commented on it.
Brunel denied wrongdoing and said through his attorney he was open to talking to investigators. Brunel’s legal team has repeatedly complained about the conditions of his detention and sought to have him released pending trial.
Brunel, aged 70, was detained at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2020 as part of an extensive French investigation launched by the United States into sex trafficking allegations against Epstein.
A frequent companion of Epstein, Brunel is seen as central to the French investigation into alleged sexual exploitation of women and girls by the US financier and his team. Epstein frequented France and had an apartment in Paris.
Many women who identify themselves as victims have spoken to police since the French investigation was opened in 2019, and at times expressed frustration with the slow pace of the investigation.
One of them, Thysia Huisman, said that the news of Brunel’s death left her “shocked”.
Former model Thysia Huisman said the news of Jean-Luc Brunel’s death left her “shocked”.
Peter Dejong / AP
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Peter Dejong / AP
Former model Thysia Huisman said the news of Jean-Luc Brunel’s death left her “shocked”.
Peter Dejong / AP
“It makes me angry, because I’ve been fighting for years,” Huisman, a former Dutch model who told police she was raped by Brunel as a teenager, told The Associated Press. “For me, the end of this is going to court. And now, the whole ending – which will help end the form – has been taken from me.”
An attorney representing Huisman and other victims, Anne-Claire Lejeune, said other women involved in the case felt the same way.
“Very disappointed, very disappointed that (the victims) are not going to get justice,” she told the AP.
She expressed doubt that the investigation would lead to a trial because Brunel was at the center of the case. She also expressed concern that Brunel’s death means that his accusers will not be officially recognized as their victims.
“To rebuild yourself (after being abused), that is one of the necessary steps,” Huisman said.
She expressed hope that Brunel’s death would not stop women from continuing to speak out about abuse. The investigation, coupled with growing speculation about sexual misconduct in France, has “liberated women to talk about it”, she said. “It’s a tough step that requires a lot of courage and strength.”
One of Epstein’s main accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has alleged that Brunel trafficted women, some of them minors, to have sex with Epstein and others, luring them with promises about modeling.
Britain’s Prince Andrew recently agreed to solve a case in which Giuffre accused him of sexually abusing her when she was 17 years old. Guiffre said she was provided to Andrew by Epstein, allegations Andrew denies. The settlement, in which Andrew agrees to make a substantial donation to Giuffre’s charity, avoids trial.
