Epstein Affiliate Jean-Luc Brunel Is Arrested in France

PARIS — A former modeling agent and associate of the financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested at an airport around Paris this week as element of an investigation into allegations of rape and sexual assault, together with in opposition to minors, French prosecutors mentioned on Thursday.

The agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, a Frenchman born in 1946, was arrested on Wednesday just north of Paris at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. The investigation into his actions also consists of expenses of sexual harassment and boy or girl trafficking, the Paris prosecutor’s place of work claimed.

The investigation is portion of a broader inquiry that Paris prosecutors opened in August 2019 to uncover any probable offenses committed either in France or from French victims abroad in relationship with the scandal involving Mr. Epstein, who was accused in the United States of sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of women over extended intervals of time.

Mr. Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail mobile very last yr at the age of 66, owned an apartment on Avenue Foch, in an upscale Parisian neighborhood, and traveled often to France.

Several designs have also accused Mr. Brunel of sexual offenses in France, and prosecutors declined to say if he was also currently being questioned about those accusations.

At minimum one particular of Mr. Epstein’s accusers has explained that Mr. Brunel used his place as a modeling scout to procure minors for the billionaire, who after socialized with politicians, famous people and Wall Street executives.

The investigation in France is continue to in a preliminary stage, and no just one has been formally billed. Beneath French legislation, Mr. Brunel can be questioned by the law enforcement for up to 96 hours, relying on the fees becoming pressed, prior to he is either released or placed underneath formal investigation.

Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, a lawyer for Mr. Brunel, could not be achieved straight away for comment. In a assertion to The Guardian in 2015, Mr. Brunel vehemently denied involvement, “directly or indirectly,” in the accusations against Mr. Epstein. “I strongly deny acquiring committed any illicit act or any wrongdoing in the system of my get the job done as a scouter or design organizations manager,” he told The Guardian.

The Paris prosecutor’s workplace declined to remark on French information studies that prior to his arrest on Wednesday, Mr. Brunel was about to board a flight for Dakar, the cash of Senegal. Mr. Brunel was not under any sort of judicial manage and was free to vacation.

Mr. Brunel commenced his job as a modeling agent in France, later on turning into the head of Karin Products and founding MC2 Model Administration. He expanded his occupation to the United States, in which he met and befriended Mr. Epstein, usually traveling and socializing with him in advance of the two experienced a falling out as the sex-trafficking accusations from the billionaire emerged.

In court filings in a federal court docket in New York, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, alleged that Mr. Brunel would give modeling careers to ladies — some as young as 12 — and carry them to the United States to “farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein.”

Ms. Giuffre also claimed Mr. Epstein sexually trafficked her to Mr. Brunel on “numerous occasions and in quite a few destinations,” together with the south of France, in accordance to court docket data.

Messages apparently from cell phone calls scribbled on a notepad discovered in Mr. Epstein’s mansion in Palm Seashore, Fla., appeared to demonstrate Mr. Brunel cryptically talking to his friend about underage ladies, in accordance to court docket information.

A person information from 2005, titled “For Jeffrey From Jean Luc,” stated: “He has a instructor for you to instruct you how to discuss Russian. She is 2×8 yrs old not blonde. Classes are cost-free and you can have your 1st right now if you call.”

No prison expenses have been lodged versus Mr. Brunel in federal court in New York.

But Mr. Brunel has faced immediate accusations of abuse himself. In a 1988 “60 Minutes” exposé, numerous other models accused him of inappropriate remedy, such as drugging them and, in 1 circumstance, rape.

3 former designs also advised The Guardian final 12 months that he sexually assaulted them in the 1980s and ’90s in and all-around Paris.

Thysia Huisman, a former Dutch model who has accused Mr. Brunel of drugging and raping her in Paris in 1991, said she cried “tears of joy” right after hearing about the arrest.

“I’m really pleased that there is finally some motion in the case,” she claimed in a phone job interview. “I documented him to the law enforcement in September 2019, and I realized my scenario was earlier the statute of constraints, but I hoped it would motivate other ladies to come forward.”

Anne-Claire Lejeune, a law firm who represents Ms. Huisman as effectively as 3 other ladies who have also accused Mr. Brunel of sexual misconduct, said Mr. Brunel’s arrest was “a very excellent to start with step” but she cautioned that he experienced nonetheless to be charged and hoped that the prosecutors would hand over the inquiry to unique magistrates.

Less than French legislation, such magistrates have broad investigative powers and can place defendants underneath formal investigation. Not all preliminary investigations reach that phase, nevertheless, and prosecutors can drop circumstances if they do not uncover firm evidence of wrongdoing.

But some of the claims by Ms. Lejeune’s shoppers are blocked by statutory time limitations for rape cases, which in France is 20 a long time. None of her consumers have accused Mr. Epstein of wrongdoing.

Mr. Brunel is not the only determine in the French modeling agency to encounter rape accusations. Gérald Marie, who was president for 25 several years of the European division of Elite Product Administration, has also been accused by previous products of rape and sexual assault courting back again to the 1980s and 1990s.

Zoë Brock, a design from New Zealand who has accused Mr. Brunel of supplying her medication and attempting to have sexual intercourse with her in 1991 — when she was however a small — mentioned the arrest was a reduction.

“I experienced supplied up on the French process completely,” she said in a phone job interview. “It’s incredibly exciting but I reserve my joy until eventually there are any fees. I’ve uncovered by all of this that this can take a pretty very long time.”

Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting and Amy Julia Harris contributed analysis from New York.