All of this Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell/Prince Andrew stuff has been downright chilling at times. The story of Epstein’s in-custody death was that he was on suicide watch, with video cameras trained on his cell and plenty of guards around, yet he was able to hang himself and not be discovered for hours. Oh, and none of the cameras were working. Except for the cameras which were working, but the videos are missing. And he definitely hanged himself except coroners still have questions. As I’ve said, I was really worried that Ghislaine would mysteriously die before her trial as well. She did not – she was tried and convicted, and she’s sitting in a prison cell as we speak. Not so much for one of Maxwell and Epstein’s human trafficker buddies, Jean-Luc Brunel. Brunel allegedly hanged himself in his French jail cell on Saturday. No cameras were working for this “suicide” either.
The body of Jean-Luc Brunel, 75, was reportedly found hanging in his cell in the early hours of Saturday. The French prosecutors’ office confirmed the report and said an inquiry had been opened into the exact cause of death, but early indications pointed to suicide. Brunel was arrested in December 2020 at Charles de Gaulle airport before boarding a plane for Dakar in Senegal where he told police he was going on holiday.
He was officially put under investigation on allegations of the alleged rape of a minor and sexual harassment shortly after his arrest, and was put under a second investigation for the rape of a minor in June last year. Investigators had also questioned Brunel on suspicion of the human trafficking of underage girls for sexual exploitation. He was being held on remand in La Santé prison in Paris.
Several top models had come forward to accuse him of sexual assault and rape, and French police had reportedly interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses. Brunel had denied any wrongdoing or any involvement in illegal activities. He disappeared from public life shortly after Epstein’s death in August 2019. Epstein also hanged himself in his prison cell while awaiting trial.
In the 1990s, Paris-born Brunel was a model talent scout and boss of the prestigious agency Karin Models. After he was banned from the agency in European 1999 following a BBC undercover report on abuse in the fashion industry, he moved to the US and founded MC2 Model Management with funding from Epstein. He is credited with discovering a number of supermodels including Christy Turlington and Milla Jovovich. He met Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner, in the 1980s and she had introduced him to Epstein.
His legal team said in a statement: “His distress was that of a man of 75 years old caught up in a media-legal system that we should be questioning. Jean-Luc Brunel never stopped claiming his innocence and had made many efforts to prove it. His decision [to end his life] was not driven by guilt but by a deep sense of injustice.”
I’m not going to tell French criminal defense attorneys how to do their jobs, but isn’t it pretty quick on the draw to declare this, definitively, suicide? And why are they so eager to blame this on “injustice” when really, they should be the ones advocating for a full investigation into their client’s mysterious death. Virginia Giuffre knew Brunel too – she’s named him repeatedly as a abuser, rapist and procurer of young girls for Epstein and Maxwell’s trafficking operation, and she’s said that Epstein once bragged to her that he had “slept with” (raped) more than 1,000 of “Brunel’s girls.”
A lot of “messes” have been cleaned up over the past three years. Epstein, suddenly arrested and then hanged in a jail cell. Maxwell, arrested and convicted. Brunel, arrested and then hanged in a jail cell. Andrew, paying off his rape victim and being stripped of a public royal role. And I guess we’re not supposed to see how weird all of this is.
The suicide of Jean-Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and young women, ends another chapter. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to face him in a final trial to hold him accountable, but gratified that I was able to testify in person last year to keep him in prison.
— Virginia Giuffre (@VRSVirginia) February 19, 2022
Jean-Luc Brunel, held on suspicion of supplying girls to Epstein, found hanged https://t.co/HhINoHkycC
— The Guardian (@guardian) February 19, 2022
IG courtesy of the NY Post. Additional photos courtesy of Backgrid.
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