The “scout” Jean-Luc Brunel was in Brazil in April 2019 for a casting at the Mega Models agency.
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MEGA MODELS
Model agent Jean-Luc Brunel was taken into custody on Wednesday morning in the premises of the Central Office for the Repression of Violence against Persons (OCRVP), for the counts of rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assaults on a 15-year-old minor, sexual harassment and human trafficking.
20 Minutes
collected, in partnership with the
Miami Herald
, the testimony of a former model who claims to have been raped by Jeffrey Epstein, to whom the French agent would have presented her.
Several testimonies support the thesis according to which Jean-Marc Brunel addressed young girls to Epstein.
The French agent has, through the voice of his lawyer, repeatedly denied the facts with which he is accused.
“I have a very good friend, he is rich and he has a good heart.
When the boss of her agency first spoke to her about this mysterious "benefactor" in the early 2000s, Jane * thought to herself that she had nothing to lose.
But over the following months, this model, then 24, claims to have been raped by Jeffrey Epstein, and she accuses French agent Jean-Luc Brunel of playing the touts, according to her testimony gathered by
20 Minutes
in partnership with the
Miami Herald
(see box).
While the French septuagenarian, arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday, was still in police custody this Friday morning for the counts of rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor, sexual harassment and human trafficking humans, Jane hopes he will finally have to answer to justice.
And she is not alone.
"Hearing the news, I cried with joy," reacts Thysia Huisman, a Dutch ex-model who claims to have been drugged and raped by Jean-Luc Brunel in Paris in 1991, when she was 18 years old.
“We've been waiting for this for so long, I hope all victims will get justice.
"
"Charmer and joker"
New York, late 2002. After trying to break into a model in the United States, Jane is ready to pack her bags to return to Europe.
She only did a few commercials, and her career didn't take off.
His American agent tries to dissuade him and organizes a lunch with the boss of Karin Models New York: Jean-Luc Brunel.
“He was a charmer and a joker.
He told me I had potential, ”she recalls.
This is where the Frenchman tells him about his “friend”, who “likes to spend his money for good causes”.
Since she wants to study, Brunel assures her that Jeffrey Epstein could play the patronage and pay his registration fees at NYU University.
Jean-Luc Brunel in the early 2000s (Myspace profile).
- MYSPACE
The New York millionaire welcomes him to his luxurious Manhattan residence in jeans and cowboy boots.
Epstein explains that "Jean-Look" told him about her, and that he indeed sponsors "young people who have talent and ambition".
But he sets a condition: she must be "completely honest" with him, that she confides her most intimate secrets to him.
According to Jane, this is the beginning of a relationship "in the grip".
Who continues with gifts, perfume and lingerie, in particular.
Then comes a sexual massage and, finally, according to his story, a rape.
It was after a stay in Little Saint James, Epstein's private island in the Caribbean, that Jane finally had the courage to confront her attacker, in mid-2003 - a friend she had confided in at the time. corroborates his testimony.
Shortly after, she received threatening anonymous phone calls, and decided to return to Europe.
According to her, "the psychological trauma lasted much longer than the physical pain of the rape."
Jane cannot prove that Jean-Luc Brunel knew he was sending her to a predator.
But what is certain, according to her, is that he waited until she was vulnerable and desperate to introduce his "good friend" to her.
Jeffrey Epstein in July 2013 (photo illustration) - AFP
Brunel-Maxwell-Epstein, a trio with thirty-year ties
This testimony is added to that of the American Virginia Roberts-Giuffre.
This accuser of Jeffrey Epstein claimed in an affidavit in 2015 that she was forced to have sex with several relatives of the New York financier, including Prince Andrew and Jean-Luc Brunel.
According to her, Ghislaine Maxwell, indicted last July for trafficking in minors, recruited mainly American high school girls, and Jean-Luc Brunel brought underage girls from Eastern Europe and South America through his modeling agency MC2 from Miami, in which Epstein has invested.
According to our information, the friendship between Brunel and Maxwell dates back to the 1980s in Paris.
And it is the Franco-Briton who would have introduced the French agent to her companion Jeffrey Epstein in the early 1990s, in New York.
The trio have traveled together about 20 times aboard Jeffrey Epstein's private jet.
French agent Jean-Luc Brunel and Ghislaine Maxwell on Jeffrey Epstein's island in the mid-2000s. - Photos provided to "20 Minutes"
The South American track
If models signed by Jean-Luc Brunel in the United States have had some success, this was only the tip of the iceberg.
Joey Hunter, whose “biggest regret” is having briefly worked with Brunel at the head of the Karin New York agency, told
20 Minutes
his incomprehension of seeing “very young girls, who had absolutely no the potential to be a model ”to be recruited.
It is Maritza Vasquez, the former accountant of the MC2 agency, who provides the answer.
According to his testimony, collected by the
Miami Herald
, these young girls, coming in particular from Brazil, were regularly sent by Jean-Luc Brunel to Jeffrey Epstein's to “parties”: “The only reason why Mr. Epstein was involved [financially in the agency], it was for the girls, because it was not a business that made money ”.
The South American track leads in particular to the New Generation springboard competition, organized by Jean-Luc Brunel in Quayaquil, Ecuador, in August 2004. About forty candidates are participating in the hope of winning a contract in the United States.
Some are only 14 or 15 years old.
Participants in the New Generation competition organized on August 25, 2004 by agent Jean-Luc Brunel in Ecuador (photos provided by Glaucia Fekete).
- Glaucia Fekete
The Austrian Cordula Pfluegl, 17 at the time of this competition, remembers that the French fifty-something was "
creepy
and very tactile with the girls".
According to her, he had "permanently three or four Brazilians around him", including one who was obviously his "
girlfriend
".
The latter first assured that she was 21 years old.
But according to Glaucia Fekete, a high school student who came from Brazil with a "chaperone", Brunel's "girlfriend" later admitted that she was a minor.
Fekete and Pfluegl don't remember seeing Jeffrey Epstein in Ecuador.
But according to the flight manifesto, Epstein's private jet, nicknamed by the tabloids the "Lolita Express", nevertheless landed at Quayaquil airport on August 24, the day before the competition, then took off again on the 25th. Cordula Pfluegl was recalls on the other hand that "Brazilians spoke all the time of an '' island ''".
Looking back, she thinks she was lucky never to be invited.
(*) the first name has been changed
Justice
Epstein case: Model agent Jean-Luc Brunel in custody for rapes since Wednesday
World
When Ghislaine Maxwell was alongside Jeffrey Epstein, Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunel was never far away
Collaboration between "20 Minutes" and the "Miami Herald"
20 Minutes has been
investigating for several months the links between Jeffrey Epstein and Jean-Luc Brunel on both sides of the Atlantic, in collaboration with the “Miami Herald” (McClatchy group).
In 2018, the revelations of the American daily and its journalist Julie K. Brown had helped relaunch the investigation of the American justice system and led to the arrest of Epstein in July 2019.
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