French model agent pal of Jeffrey Epstein found hanged in prison cell
By Isabel Vincent and Dana Kennedy
- The French model agent who was charged with securing girls and young women for billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was found dead Saturday in a Paris prison cell, prosecutors said.
Jean-Luc Brunel, 74, was found hanged by his bedsheets in his cell around 1:30 a.m. local time at La Sante prison, the Paris prosecutor’s office told CNN.
Brunel, who ran Karin Models in Paris, and later formed MC2 Model Management with Epstein, was awaiting trial on charges of sexual assault and rape. He was also being investigated for trafficking minors, including girls as young as 12 years old, according to French news reports.
Brunel’s lawyers insisted that the disgraced fashion fixture’s “decision was not guided by guilt, but by a sense of injustice.”
“Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence. He has multiplied his efforts to prove it. A judge had released him a few months ago, and then he was re-incarcerated in undignified conditions,” his lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain said in a statement to CNN.
Brunel — who was credited with launching the careers of models Christy Turlington, Monica Belluci and Angie Everhart — went into hiding after Epstein’s own suicide in a Manhattan lockup in August 2019.
French police arrested Brunel in December 2020 as part of a probe into “acts of sexual nature” believed to have been committed by Epstein and accomplices.
He was released under judicial supervision for a few days in November 2021, only to return to custody following a decision by a court of appeals, CNN reported.
Brunel was the founder of Karin Models agency.
The deaths of Epstein and Brunel, under similar circumstances, have riled up conspiracy theorists who believe that both men were privy to the secrets of some of the world’s most powerful players, including politicians and financiers.
“It was very convenient and yes suspicious,” a veteran Paris police detective told The Post, who nonetheless said he was not yet convinced Brunel was “suicided.”
Another Paris-based photographer who worked with Brunel added, “It’s weird.”
Brunel, who worked as a model agent in Paris since the late 1970s, was introduced to Epstein by his former gal pal, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking last year.
Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine’s brother, called Brunel’s death “really shocking.”
Brunel was introduced to Epstein by British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
The deaths of Epstein and Brunel, under similar circumstances, have riled up conspiracy theorists who believe that both men were privy to the secrets of some of the world’s most powerful players, including politicians and financiers.
“It was very convenient and yes suspicious,” a veteran Paris police detective told The Post, who nonetheless said he was not yet convinced Brunel was “suicided.”
Another Paris-based photographer who worked with Brunel added, “It’s weird.”
Brunel, who worked as a model agent in Paris since the late 1970s, was introduced to Epstein by his former gal pal, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking last year.
Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine’s brother, called Brunel’s death “really shocking.”
Brunel, pictured with Maxwell onboard Epstein’s private jet dubbed the Lolita Express.
“Another death by hanging in a high-security prison. My reaction is one of total shock and bewilderment,” he told The Post.
Maxwell, one of Ghislaine’s four siblings, said the family now “fears for her safety” at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where she is being held.
Though he noted that it was “ironic” that Ghislaine is under suicide watch, while Brunel and Epstein were not at the time of their deaths in their respective prisons.
Brunel was found hanged in his cell in Paris’ Sante prison.
“She was deemed a suicide risk and they are now waking her up every 15 minutes. It’s a complete violation of prisoner rights and human rights,” he said.
French prison authorities told Le Parisien that “no breach” in security at the prison where Brunel was being housed had occurred, and an investigation into the cause of death had been opened.
The prison is known for its brutal conditions as well as housing some of the world’s most notorious criminals like Carlos the Jackal, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of an informant for the French government and two French counterintelligence agents.
