A PROMINENT FRENCH modelling agent who was a former close associate of disgraced American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead in his Paris prison cell, prosecutors have said.
Epstein, who was arrested in New York in July 2019 on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, was found dead in his New York jail cell the following month while awaiting trial over abuses involving girls at his Palm Beach home and on his private island in the Caribbean.
His former associate Jean-Luc Brunel, in his mid-70s, had been charged with the rape of minors and held in prison since December 2020.
A source close to the investigation told AFP that he had been found dead overnight Friday to Saturday. Paris prosecutors later confirmed he had died.
Police are now investigating the cause of the death, added the source, who asked not to be named. Brunel’s death means that his case is now closed unless other suspects are implicated in the same case in the future.
Brunel had denied the charges against him.
His ownership of an apartment in an upmarket Paris district and allegations from women who say they were abused in France prompted French prosecutors to open their own investigation.
That probe focused on Brunel, who was accused in American court documents of rape and of procuring young girls for his friend.
Anne-Claire Le Jeune, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, expressed “frustration and bitterness over not being able to obtain justice, just as for the victims of Epstein”.
“It took so much courage to be able to speak up, to be heard by the police and the investigating judges. It’s quite terrible for the victims”, she said.
She added that the victims have the “feeling that he (Brunel) is leaving behind a number of secrets”.
Brunel began his career as a model scout and in 1978 was involved in setting up the prestigious Karin Models agency.
He then moved to the United States where he co-founded the Miami-based agency MC2.
In US court documents, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a key plaintiff against Epstein, accused him of using her as a “sex slave” and said she had been forced to have sex with well-known politicians and businessmen, including Brunel.
She also alleged Brunel would bring girls as young as 12 to the United States and pass them on to friends, including Epstein.
His death comes days after Queen Elizabeth II’s second son Prince Andrew settled the lawsuit brought by Giuffre, sparing him the public humiliation of a trial.
Giuffre has said she had sex with Andrew when she was 17 and a minor under US law, after meeting him through Epstein.
The prince, 61, has not been criminally charged and has denied the allegations.
In December, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, a friend of Epstein and Prince Andrew, was convicted in the United States of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
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