Former Dutch model Thysia Huisman, one of her accusers, said on Twitter to have some “Cried for joy” : Jean-Luc Brunel, ex-agent of models suspected of having played for years the “touts” of young women on behalf of the American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, was indicted on Saturday 19 December. He is suspected of rape of a minor and sexual harassment. He is also placed under the status of assisted witness for trafficking in human beings. He was remanded in custody.
“The investigations will continue within the framework of the judicial information entrusted to three investigating judges”, specifies the Paris prosecutor’s office. Arrested at Roissy airport on Wednesday as he was preparing to embark for Senegal, the man was taken into custody in the premises of the Central Office for the Repression of Violence against the Person before being indicted.
The name of this septuagenarian first appeared in the American proceedings concerning Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in the summer of 2019, a few days after his imprisonment for multiple acts of sexual exploitation of minors. For decades, the New York financial magnate sexually abused very young women, through a veritable organized network. The billionaire owned a private island, Little St. James, frequented by celebrities, including British Prince Andrew. The young girls, sometimes barely 12 years old according to the American accusation, were brought there, provided by several intermediaries. The main one, who was for a long time his companion, is called Ghislaine Maxwell. Long on the run after the fall of Jeffrey Epstein, she was arrested in July 2020 in New Hampshire, and remains in detention pending trial, scheduled for the summer of 2021.
Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of magnate Robert Maxwell, is not the only one close to the billionaire in charge: according to the testimonies of several former models, the French Jean-Luc Brunel was also among the main “suppliers”. We find his name about twenty times in the flight manifests of Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed “Lolita Express” by the American press. This former modeling agent, founder of the Karen Models agency in France, then of MC2 Model Management, created in the United States with the help and funds of Mr. Epstein, was a figure of Parisian nights in the 1980s. He would also have played the role of “tout” for the billionaire, providing him with young women, sometimes minors, through his modeling agencies.
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