Former French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who had close ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead in a Paris prison in an apparent suicide while facing rape charges.

Agency France Presse reported earlier Saturday that Brunel was found hanged on Friday night in his cell in the La Santé prison. The Paris public prosecutor’s office confirmed his death to Bloomberg News, and said an investigation into the cause has been opened by the police. Brunel’s lawyers indicated he took his own life.

“His decision was not guided by guilt but by a deep sense of injustice,” lawyers Christophe Ingrain, Mathias Chichportiche and Marianne Abgrall said in a statement. “Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence. He has multiplied his efforts to prove it.”

Brunel, 75, a longtime associate of Epstein and owner of a high-end modelling agency, was charged with rape and sexual harassment in December 2020. The rape charges relate to acts with minors over the age of 15.

Brunel had been targeted by French authorities as part of an investigation into those who may have helped Epstein lure underage girls into the late financier’s orbit. The relationship between Brunel and Epstein is documented to have gone back at least as far as 2002, when flight logs place the Frenchman on the financier’s private plane on a flight from Florida to the Bahamas.

Epstein took his own life in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

By Benoit Berthelot

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