Jeffrey Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel found dead in French jail

Modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was close to Epstein was being held in an investigation into the rape and sex trafficking of minors, the Paris prosecutor's office said.

A modeling agent who was close to disgraced U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead Saturday in his French jail cell, where he was being held in an investigation into the rape and sex trafficking of minors, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Victims of the alleged abuse described shock and dismay that the 75-year-old agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, will never face trial. They described his death as a double blow, after Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting sex-trafficking charges.

Brunel’s lawyers suggested Saturday that he, too, killed himself.

In a statement, they described his “distress” and repeated requests for provisional release from jail.

“Jean-Luc Brunel never stopped declaring his innocence,” they said. “His decision was not guided by guilt, but by a deep sentiment of injustice.” The lawyers would not further comment on what happened.

Paris police are investigating Brunel’s death, the prosecutor’s office said. Brunel’s legal team had repeatedly complained about the conditions of his detention and sought to have him released pending trial.

Brunel was detained at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2020 as part of a broad French probe unleashed by the U.S. sex-trafficking charges against Epstein. A frequent companion of Epstein, Brunel was considered central to the French investigation into alleged sexual exploitation of women and girls by the U.S. financier and his circle. Epstein traveled often to France and had apartments in Paris.

One of Epstein’s main accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has alleged that Brunel procured women, some of them minors, for sex with Epstein and other people, luring them with promises of modeling work.