The former French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, close to the deceased American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead hanged on the night of Friday to Saturday in his cell in the prison of Health in Paris, learned AFP from source familiar with the matter on Saturday.
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that this man indicted for several rapes of minors had been found dead and indicated that an investigation into the causes of death had been opened, entrusted to the 3rd judicial police district.
Indicted several times for rape
Accused of rape by several former top models, which he disputed, the septuagenarian had been indicted at the end of June 2021 for “rape of a minor over 15 years old”. He had already been indicted in December 2020 for “rape of a minor over 15 years old” and “sexual harassment”.
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 death means the extinction of public action in this case, unless other people were to be implicated.
Quoted in the Epstein case
His name was cited in an investigation in the United States into the sex scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, also found dead in his cell in August 2019. Jean-Luc Brunel was arrested in December 2020 at Charles-de-Gaulle airport while he was about to take a flight to Dakar, and had been imprisoned following his indictment.
Mr. Brunel had been released under judicial supervision for a few days last November, before being returned to detention by decision of the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal. He had lodged an appeal in cassation against this judgment.
More than half a thousand hearings in the investigation
A billionaire financier, Mr. Epstein was charged in July 2019 in the United States for having organized, between 2002 and 2005, a network of young girls whom he allegedly sexually exploited. The Paris prosecutor’s office, alerted by the potential existence of French minors among Epstein’s victims, opened a preliminary investigation in August 2019.
A complaint was filed two months later against Mr. Brunel for acts of “sexual harassment” which were not time-barred, contrary to several charges against him. According to concordant sources, the Central Office for the Suppression of Personal Violence (OCRVP), in charge of the investigation, had carried out more than half a thousand hearings.