Jeffrey Epstein’s former business partner and alleged accomplice in trafficking and sexually abusing girls, Jean-Luc Brunel, was found dead Saturday in his French jail cell, according to French authorities.
Brunel’s death eerily resembles Epstein’s death by hanging in a New York prison cell in August 2019 that was ruled a suicide. Brunel, 76, had been arrested in December 2020 and was under investigation on rape and sex trafficking charges.
“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,” said Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who has represented several of Epstein’s victims. “Of course, the alternative conspiracy theory is that it’s like someone is trying to clean up shop.”
Prosecutors in Paris confirmed Brunel was found hanging in his cell in La Sante, in the south Paris, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
“I can confirm that Mr. Brunel was discovered at 1:30 a.m. last night dead in his cell. 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,” said Antoine Pesme, a spokesperson for the Paris public prosecutor’s office.
British and French media reported that no cameras recorded the alleged suicide at the jail, one of the toughest prisons in France, which has both high security and VIP wings that have housed some of the country’s most infamous prisoners.
Brunel’s death also comes as a judge in New York is weighing the release and unsealing of documents that could shed more light on Epstein’s trafficking operation and who was involved. Several people, labeled as “John Does,” have been fighting for years to keep their names redacted from the documents.
Brunel was being held for investigation into allegations that he and others sexually abused and trafficked young women in France over several decades. He was considered a key part of the case, and had reportedly been cooperating with authorities. He had also been speaking to U.S. authorities.
Since Brunel’s arrest, many women came forward to French authorities to report their abuse, including Thysia Huisman, a Dutch former model who said was raped by Brunel as a teen.
“It makes me angry, because I’ve been fighting for years,” Huisman told the AP. “For me, the end of this was to be in court. And now that whole ending — which would help form closure — is taken away from me.”
More than a decade ago, Epstein gave Brunel a $1 million line of credit to start the Miami Beach modeling agency MC2. Brunel, a legendary modeling scout who had worked for decades in New York and Paris, has long been rumored to have aided and participated in Epstein’s abuse of girls.
Prior to MC2, Brunel had run the New York office of the famed modeling agency Karin Models for much of the 1990s.
Maritza Vasquez, Brunel’s former bookkeeper in Miami Beach, told the Miami Herald in 2019 that MC2 wasn’t really a functioning modeling agency, but was more a vehicle for steering young women recruited to the agency to parties at Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York, and wasn’t a successful business.
“The only reason Mr. Epstein was involved was because of the girls, I think, because it was not a profitable business,” Vasquez told the Herald.
Brunel’s death comes days after Prince Andrew settled a lawsuit with Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who said Prince Andrew had sexually abused her when she was underage at several homes owned by Epstein.
And it comes two months after Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and co-conspirator, was found guilty on five of six charges related to the sex trafficking of minors. She is appealing her conviction, but her sentencing is scheduled for June.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, where he was awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls, mainly in Palm Beach, where he owned a mansion. He was accused, along with Maxwell, of building a sexual pyramid scheme involving middle and high school girls in the 2000s.
The New York medical examiner ruled his death a suicide by hanging, but his brother, his lawyers and a noted forensic pathologist hired by his estate said they believe he was killed.
Dr. Michael Baden, an expert in prison deaths, told the Herald that that various bones in Epstein’s neck were broken, including one near the Adam’s apple called the hyoid bone. Though damage to that particular bone is more common in cases of strangulation, medical experts have also said the bone is damaged in older people such as Epstein, who was 66.
His death led to a spate of conspiracy theories about whether Epstein was killed because of information he had on other prominent people involved in trafficking. He died one day after a federal court unsealed nearly 2,000 pages of documents that offered sordid details of the alleged trafficking of girls by the financier and his ex-girlfriend, Maxwell.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December of helping Epstein traffic underage girls. It is not known whether she has offered to cooperate with authorities who are investigating other possible co-conspirators.
Kuvin said that the timing of Brunel’s death is “a hell of coincidence. It’s almost like it’s someone is trying to send a message to Ghislaine to shut up.”
Giuffre accused Brunel of recruiting women, some of them minors, for sex with Epstein and other people. Her recent lawsuit settlement, in which Andrew agreed to make a substantial donation to Giuffre’s charity, is said to be in the millions.
Anne-Claire Lejeune, who represented several of Brunel’s alleged victims, said she hoped that Brunel’s death won’t stop other victims from coming forward about sexual abuse in France, where there has been a growing reckoning that has “freed up women to talk about it,” she told the AP. “It’s a difficult step that requires a lot of courage and strength.”
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