Jeffrey Epstein Cohort Jean-Luc Brunel Found Dead Inside Jail Cell
Among the many powerful people associated with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is French businessman Jean-Luc Brunel, a talent scout and modeling agent. Though he claimed that he had no business connection to Epstein, according to Refinery29, Brunel did admit that Epstein provided him with a $1 million line of credit when he opened MC2 Model Management in 2005. Aside from business ventures, the pair appeared to be close friends as well, given that Brunel flew on Epstein's private jet more than 25 times between 1998 and 2005 and the two exchanged a number of messages and calls throughout the years. Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of Epstein's, was actually the one to introduce Brunel to Epstein initially.
In December 2020, Brunel was arrested at the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and accused of multiple counts of "rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assault on a minor under 15, rape and sexual assault on a minor over 15, sexual harassment, criminal associations and human trafficking to the detriment of minor victims for the purposes of sexual exploitation," a statement sent to CNN reads. His arrest was a part of a larger investigation by French prosecutors who were looking into the acts committed by Epstein and his accomplices and friends. Brunel was released in November 2021, but, shortly after, the Paris Court of Appeals put him in prison once again. On Saturday, Brunel was found dead in his jail cell.
Brunel and Epstein's deaths are very similar
On Saturday, Jean-Luc Brunel was found dead in his jail cell in the south of Paris. According to French officials, Brunel was found hanging in his cell from an apparent suicide. "I can confirm that Mr. Brunel was discovered at 1:30 a.m. last night dead in his cell," spokesperson for the prosecutor's office, Antoine Pesme, said, according to the Miami Herald. "He was alone in the cell. According to the first findings, it is a suicide by hanging. An investigation in search of the causes of death is however opened."
Brunel's death was very similar to that of his cohort, Jeffrey Epstein, who also died by suicide, with prosecutors discovering his body hanging in his jail cell in New York (via The New York Times). "It almost seems like the entire ring of people who were doing this that their conscience is getting the better of them now that they are being held accountable for their actions," Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who represented several of Epstein's victims, told the Miami Herald. "Of course, the alternative conspiracy theory is that it's like someone is trying to clean up shop."
Throughout his time in the French prison, Brunel denied his involvement in Epstein's ring and the sexual assault allegations he faced. "Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence. He has multiplied his efforts to prove it," a statement made by his lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall, and Christophe Ingrain read, per CNN.
The investigation into Brunel's death is still ongoing.