French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a longtime associate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been found dead in a prison cell, a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor's office said.
The prosecutor's office told CNN that Brunel was found alone in his prison cell at the Sainte prison in the French capital at around 1:30 local time on Saturday. It would not comment on whether Brunel killed himself, adding an investigation into the cause of death has been opened, "as is systematically done in these cases," assigned to the French judicial police.
Brunel's French lawyers told CNN that his client's "decision was not guided by guilt, but by a sense of injustice."
"Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence. He has multiplied his efforts to prove it. A judge released him a few months ago, and then put him under humiliating circumstances. was imprisoned again," read lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abagral and Christoph Ingren in a statement sent by him to CNN.
The prosecutor's office confirmed that a rape allegation by several former top models, which they denied, placed the 75-year-old under formal investigation in France in late June 2021 for "rape of a minor over 15". went.
Brunel was declared in December 2020 at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport "rape and sexual assault on a minor under the age of 15, rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assault on a minor over the age of 15, sexual assault, criminal associations and Was arrested on charges of human trafficking. Harm to minor victims for the purposes of sexual exploitation."
He was released under judicial supervision for a few days in November 2021, before being returned to prison by a decision by the Paris Court of Appeals. He appealed against the decision as the prosecution prepared its case.
Brunel's arrest was part of an investigation launched in 2019 by French prosecutors aimed at targeting "acts of a sexual nature committed by Jeffrey Epstein and potential accomplices" based on information provided to the Paris public prosecutor. was based on check and cross-check. Office and exchanges with US officials.
Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in the United States on August 10, 2019. After pleading not guilty to federal charges accusing him of operating a sex trafficking ring from 2002 to 2005, he was awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. His Manhattan mansion and his Palm Beach estate, and allegedly paying 14-year-old girls for sex.
A medical examiner declared his death a suicide by hanging.