Jeffrey Epstein’s Pimp Jean-Luc Brunel ‘Hangs Himself Alone in Paris Jail With No CCTV’: Ghislaine Maxwell’s Family ‘Shocked and Scared for Her’ as Man Who Procured 1,000 Women for Paedophile Financier Dies Days After Andrew Deal

February 21, 2022

By Peter Allen and Emer Scully

– Jean-Luc Brunel, 76, was found hanging in his cell in La Santé, Paris, at 1 am during a night time check in.
– The fashion agent was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport in December 2020 while trying to fly to Senegal.
– He was suspected of being a member of infamous financier Jeffrey Epstein’s global underage sex ring.
– Ghislaine Maxwell’s family said they were ‘shocked’ by Brunel’s death and said they are ‘scared’ for her safety.
– Death in an alleged hanging will fuel conspiracy theories around the Epstein affair after he also died in prison.
– Brunel is thought to have been alone in the cell and there were no cameras to record his final hours.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s family have said they are ‘scared’ for her safety after Jeffrey Epstein’s French modelling agent friend Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly procured more than a thousand women and girls for the paedophile financier to sleep with, died today in an alleged prison suicide.

Prosecutors in Paris confirmed Brunel, who is not believed to have been on suicide watch, was found hanging in his cell in La Santé, in the south of the capital city, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

It comes days after Prince Andrew, 62, agreed to settle Virginia Roberts’s lawsuit accusing him of sex abuse after they met allegedly through Epstein and Maxwell. In the settlement, there was no admission of liability by Andrew, who has always denied the specific allegations.

Roberts accused Brunel, 76, of procuring more than a thousand women and girls for Epstein to sleep with and he was awaiting trial in France for raping minors.

Following Brunel’s death, Maxwell’s family described the news as ‘shocking’ and said they are scared for Maxwell’s safety at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where she is currently being held.

Speaking from his home in London, Maxwell’s brother Ian told the New York Post: ‘Another death by hanging in a high-security prison. My reaction is one of total shock and bewilderment.’

Mr Maxwell claimed that despite her psychiatrist advising ‘to the contrary’, his sister was ‘deemed a suicide risk’ and said she is woken up every 15 minutes in the night. He described it as ‘complete violation of prisoner rights and human rights’, insisting that Maxwell is not suicidal.

He added that it was ‘ironic’ that his sister was on suicide watch in prison, but Epstein and Brunel were not.

In December of last year, Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking minors, giving way to federal prosecutors to bring her to justice for her involvement in helping Epstein with luring underage girls before he would sexually assault them.

Her team of four lawyers requested a federal judge to grant her a new trial, saying questions asked to a juror about sexual abuse violated Maxwell’s right to a fair trial, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Brunel’s death in an alleged hanging will fuel conspiracy theories around the Epstein affair after the financier also died in prison while awaiting trial in what authorities concluded was a hanging.

Controversy over Epstein’s death has been fueled by the fact that prison video cameras at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correction Center were not running at the time Epstein died in the cell he shared with another inmate.

Brunel is thought to have been alone at the time of his death and there were no cameras to record his final hours, according to an investigating source at La Santé – one of the toughest jails in France.

‘A night patrol found his lifeless body at about 1 am,’ said an investigating source. ‘A judicial enquiry has been launched, and early evidence points to suicide.’

Prosecutors in Paris confirmed that Jean-Luc Brunel (pictured), 76, was found hanging in his cell in La Santé, in the south of the capital city, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

His death in an alleged hanging will fuel conspiracy theories around the Epstein affair after he also died in prison while awaiting trial in what authorities say was a hanging. Pictured, Brunel with Maxwell and Epstein on a private jet

Following Brunel’s death, Maxwell’s family described the news as ‘shocking’ and said they are scared for Maxwell’s (pictured in a courtroom sketch) safety at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where she is currently being held.

Following the news of his death, Virginia Roberts said she was ‘disappointed’ that she was not able to face Brunel at a ‘final trial to hold him accountable’ and added that his alleged suicide ‘ends another chapter’.

Taking to Twitter following the news of his death on Saturday, she wrote: ‘The suicide of Jean-Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and young women, ends another chapter.

‘I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to face him in a final trial to hold him accountable, but gratified that I was able to testify in person last year to keep him in prison.’

Another alleged victim, former Dutch model Thysia Huisman, said: ‘It makes me angry, because I’ve been fighting for years.

‘For me, the end of this was to be in court. Now that whole ending – which would help form closure – is taken away from me.’

It was in December 2020 that Brunel was indicted after two days of interviews by an examining magistrate and specialist police from an anti-paedophilia unit.

He was arrested at the city’s Charles de Gaulle airport on while trying to board a plane to Dakar, Senegal, telling detectives ‘I’m going on holiday’.

While CCTV is commonplace in the corridors and gateways of French prisons, the vast majority of cells are not under video surveillance. This is ensure a degree of privacy, and to make sure that European human rights legislation is not violated.

Inmates are sometimes known to record events using devices including mobile phones, but Brunel is thought to have been in a single occupancy cell, said the source.

‘There is an investigation going on to confirm all this, but at the moment it looks like he killed himself alone, and it was a routine patrol that found his body hanging,’ he said.

The source added: ‘There were no obvious fears for the prisoner’s health, and he was not on a suicide watch, having already been in prison for many months.’

The official enquiry into Brunel’s sudden death was on Saturday being carried out by offices from the 3rd Judicial Police district in Paris. An autopsy was set to be carried out, to establish the exact cause of death.

Forensic officers were meanwhile examining the cell where Brunel died. La Santé, which was built in the 19th Century, has housed some of the most dangerous prisoners in recent French history.

There is a so-called ‘VIP section’ where inmates include ‘super terrorist’ and mass killer Carlos the Jackal, whose real name is Ilich Ramírez Sánchez.

Brunel was originally indicted and placed in pre-trial detention in December 2020 for the ‘rape of a minor over 15 years old’ and harassing two other women.

He was also suspected of being a ‘pimp’ for Epstein, after becoming a close friend of the billionaire financier.

Brunel had been placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for acts of ‘human trafficking’ and ‘exploiting minors for the sexual purposes.’

Brunel committed suicide because he was ‘crushed’ by the allegations against him, his defence lawyers said in a joint statement.

‘His distress was that of a 75-year-old man crushed by a media-judicial system which it should be time to question,’ said Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain.

‘Jean-Luc Brunel has continued to proclaim his innocence. He multiplied his efforts to prove it. His decision [to end his life] was not driven by guilt, but by a deep sense of injustice.’

Others involved in the ring include Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 59, who is currently in prison in the USA after being found guilty of sex trafficking. Pictured, Brunel with Manwell on Epstein’s private island

The Dutch model, Thysia Huisman (pictured), who was 18 when she first stayed with Brunel, said she was raped by him in 1991. Huisman is now one of at least four alleged victims represented by Anne-Claire Le Jeune, a Paris barrister, who said Brunel being in custody was a huge relief, because their complaints now ‘take on meaning’

After news of Brunel’s death broke Ms Huidman said she felt disappointed by the ‘completely different ending without any real justice for his victims.

A French judicial enquiry into Brunel’s conduct was opened in August 2019, when prosecutors heard allegations that Brunel and the Queen’s second son shared a lover. Pictured, Brunel with models he scouted.

Brunel is pictured with models who worked for his agency. The model scout’s name appears frequently in the flight logs kept for Epstein’s private jets and prison records show he visited Epstein 67 times when he was in jail.