Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent who scouted young girls for Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead Saturday in his French jail cell.
The New York Timesreports Brunel, 75, was found hanged by his bedsheets in his cell around 1:30 a.m. local time at La Sante Prison in Paris.
Although the Paris prosecutor’s office would not confirm if Brunel killed himself, his lawyers told CNN his decision “was not guided by guilt, but by a sense of injustice.”
“Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence,” his lawyers said in a statement. “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.”
Brunel was arrested in December 2020 at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in connection with the U.S. sex-trafficking charges against Epstein. He was later charged with rape of minors over the age of 15 and sexual harassment, though he maintained his innocence.
Following the news of Brunel’s death, the family of Ghislaine Maxwell, who introduced him to Epstein, told the New York Post that they “fear for her safety.”
“It’s really shocking,” Ian Maxwell, one of Ghislaine’s siblings, told the outlet. “Another death by hanging in a high-security prison. My reaction is one of total shock and bewilderment.”
Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, was accused of recruiting and grooming underage girls for the deceased sex offender between 1994 and 2004. She was ultimately hit with a six-count indictment, which included charges of conspiracy, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, enticing a minor to travel to engage in criminal sexual activity, and sex trafficking of a minor.
Epstein was found dead in his prison cell on Aug. 10, 2019. According to court documents, the 66-year-old was placed on suicide watch sometime that July, after he was found unconscious with a bed sheet around his neck; however, a post-suicide watch report painted Epstein as a cooperative inmate who had no intentions of killing himself.
