https://abcnews.go.com/International/jeffrey-epstein-associate-jean-luc-
brunel-found-dead/story?id=83001807

Jeffrey Epstein associate, Jean Luc Brunel, found dead by suicide in
prison

Brunel had been charged with rape of minors over the age of 15.

ABC News has learned that disgraced modeling agent and Jeffrey Epstein
associate Jean Luc Brunel died by suicide in his prison cell Saturday
night in Paris.

The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed to ABC News that Brunel was found
dead in his prison cell around 1:00 a.m. local time at La Sante Prison.

Jean Luc Brunel's lawyers tell ABC News Brunel hanged himself.

The prosecutor's office declined to confirm those details of Brunel's
death.

In December 2020, Brunel was charged with rape of minors over the age of
15 and sexual harassment -- a crime in France.
MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell seeks new trial, alleges jury misconduct

In a statement on their client's death which was in French and sent to and
translated by ABC News, Brunel's lawyers said: "[Brunel's] distress
(despair) was the one of a 75-year-old man who was destroyed by the
judicial-media lynching and we should question it. Our client firmly
asserted he never abused any women. He made multiple efforts to prove it."

"His decision was not led by a feeling of guilt but by a deep feeling of
injustice," Brunel's attorneys Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and
Christophe Ingrain added.

A delegate from the Force Ouvriere Union for France's Penitentiaries,
Erwan Saoudi, further confirmed Brunel's death.

Saoudi said the prison's procedure are that prison guard conduct five
check on prisoners every night. Saoudi said while there was no closed-
circuit TV inside Brunel's cell -- video in prison corridors proves that
prison guards did not miss any of these checks.

Saoudi said Brunel died by suicide just after the guard round [of checks]
"which shows the strong will of Jean-Luc Brunel to kill himself." Saoudi
added that Brunel was not on suicide watch.

Brunel was initially arrested in Charles De Gaulle Airport in December
2020. According to Paris prosecutors, Brunel was initially held in a probe
into the rape of minors and trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation
in association with their probe into possible crimes committed by Epstein.
Days later, Brunel was charged with rape of minors over the age of 15 and
sexual harassment. Brunel maintained he was innocent.

In January 2021, Virginia Giuffre flew to Paris to provide testimony at a
closed-door hearing on Brunel's detention.

Giuffre, in the same court filing in 2014 in which she first accused
Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her, claimed to have been trafficked
by Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell to Brunel.

"The suicide of Jean Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and
young women, ends another chapter. I am disappointed that I was not able
to face him in a final trial and hold him accountable for his actions, but
gratified that I was able to face him in person last year in Paris, to
keep him in prison," Virginia Giuffre said in a statement issued though
her lawyer, Sigrid McCawley.

"I was with Virginia Giuffre in court in Paris when she provided her
powerful testimony against Jean Luc Brunel. It is devastating to Virginia
and all the survivors that Brunel will not be tried for his crimes and be
held accountable. But as we said when Jeffrey Epstein cowardly killed
himself, for the women who have stood up and called for accountability
from law enforcement around the world, it is not how these men died, but
how they lived and the damage they caused to so many. The fight to seek
truth and justice goes on," said McCawley, a partner at Boies, Schiller
Flexner.