Jean-Luc Brunel (1946 – 19 February 2022) was a French model scout. He gained prominence by leading the international modelling agency Karin Models, and founded MC2 Model Management, with financing by
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, des ...
.
The subject of a ''
60 Minutes
''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
'' investigation in 1988, Brunel faced allegations of
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
spanning three decades.
Brunel came under scrutiny for his ties to Epstein with whom he worked from the early 2000s to 2015.
Brunel was accused of grooming young females and of partaking in the alleged
sex trafficking
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the ...
ring run by Epstein.
In 2019,
French National Police
The National Police (french: Police nationale), formerly known as the , is one of two national police forces of France, the other being the National Gendarmerie. The National Police is the country's main civil law enforcement agency, with primar ...
launched an investigation on Brunel after he went into hiding following Epstein's death.
He was arrested on 16 December 2020, and
charged with the
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
of minors by French
prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
s.
However, he died from an apparent
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
before his trial could proceed.
Early life and family
Jean-Luc Brunel was born in 1946 in Paris. His father was a real estate executive.
He has one brother, Arnaud.
Career
Brunel began his career in the late 1970s, working as a modeling scout for Karin Mossberg's agency, Karin Models in Paris.
In 1978, he became the head of Karin Models.
In 1988, Brunel and his brother Arnaud founded the Next Management Corporation. In 1989, the Brunel brothers and Faith Kates formed the global modeling agency
Next Management Company.
Kates owned a majority stake in the company with the Brunel brother's Next Management Corp. owning a minority stake at 25 percent.
''American Photo'' reported that Brunel split off from Next Management Company in April 1996 with the Miami models. Next Management Company sued the Brunel brothers in 1996.
Brunel, as a talent scout, discovered a number of models who rose to prominence, including
Christy Turlington
Christy Nicole Turlington Burns (born January 2, 1969) is an American model and humanitarian. She represented Calvin Klein (fashion house), Calvin Klein's Eternity campaign in 1989 and again in 2014, and also represents Maybelline. Turlington w ...
,
Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress. Known for primarily playing femme fatales and women of mystery on film and television, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1990s. She is the recipient of various ...
, and
Milla Jovovich
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich; sr-Latn, Milica Bogdanovna Jovović; russian: Милица Богдановна Йовович; uk, Милиця Богданoвна Йовович ( ; born December 17, 1975), known professionally as Milla Jovo ...
.
Building on these early successes, he founded Karin Models of America in 1995.
After Brunel was included in a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
''MacIntyre Undercover'' report on abuse within the fashion industry in November 1999, he was banned from his modeling agency in Europe.
In the early 2000s, Brunel moved to the United States. ''
The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'' reported that he relied on funding from his brother Arnaud and their business partner, Etienne des Roys.
In 2003, both financiers pulled out and after the "Paris office filed to revoke Brunel’s claim to the Karin trademark in 2004," he changed the name of the agency to MC2.
Brunel had met
Ghislaine Maxwell
Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British convicted sex offender and former socialite. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the financier and convicted sex o ...
in the 1980s, and she later introduced him to the financier
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, des ...
.
Brunel received funds from Epstein of "up to a million dollars" in 2004 to help launch a new modeling agency: MC2 Model Management.
Brunel transformed Karin Models U.S. division into MC2 Model Management, by opening offices in New York City and Miami in 2005. The agency name evokes Epstein through a reference to Einstein's equation for mass energy equivalency or
E=mc.
Clients of MC2 reportedly included
Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...
,
Macy's Inc.
Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American Conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus ( ...
,
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street and ...
,
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment compani ...
,
J.C. Penney Co.,
Kohl's Corporation
Kohl's (stylized in all caps) is an American department store retail chain, operated by Kohl's Corporation. it is the largest department store chain in the United States, with 1,165 locations, operating stores in every U.S. state except Hawai ...
,
Target Corporation
Target Corporation (doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a compon ...
,
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, and
Belk
Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with nearly 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings, ...
.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Virginia Louise Giuffre (''née'' Roberts; born August 9, 1983) is an American-Australian campaigner who offers support to victims of sex trafficking. She is an alleged victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre created Vic ...
, an Epstein accuser, alleged in a 2014 court filing that the system was a cover for
sex trafficking
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the ...
.
In court documents released in August 2019, Giuffre named Brunel as one of the men Maxwell had directed her as a teenager to have sex with.
In 2019, it was reported that Brunel helped create The Identity Models in New York City and 1Mother Agency in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, Ukraine. MC2 was dissolved on 27 September 2019.
Rape accusations
Brunel was the subject of a seven-month investigation by
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
producer Craig Pyes and reporter
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer (; born December 22, 1945) is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including ''ABC World News Tonight'', '' Good Morning America'', ''20/20'', and '' Primetime'' newsmag ...
for ''
60 Minutes
''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
''. The investigative segment "American Models in Paris", which aired on 23 October 1988, covered the conduct of Brunel and fellow Parisian modeling agent Claude Haddad.
Several American models who worked with Brunel were interviewed by ''60 Minutes'' and described their experiences of the culture Brunel fostered where the models were routinely drugged and sexually abused.
Eileen Ford
Eileen ( or ) is an Irish feminine given name anglicised from Eibhlín and may refer to:
People Artists
*Eileen Agar (1899–1991), British Surrealist painter and photographer
*Eileen Fisher (born 1950), clothing retailer and designer
*Eileen ...
(of the New York-based
Ford Modeling Agency
Ford Models, originally the Ford Modeling Agency, is an American international modeling agency based in New York City. It was established in 1946 by Eileen Ford and her husband Gerard W. Ford.
Company
Ford Models was started in 1946 by Eileen ...
) had sent her models to Brunel for Paris assignments and was interviewed for the program where she claimed no prior knowledge of the multiple complaints from models of sexual exploitation and drug abuse by Brunel.
He denied the claims, but Ford ultimately severed ties with him following the broadcast.
Michael Gross reported in ''Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women'' that Brunel had admitted to using cocaine for years.
Brunel defended his use by stating that he did not have a drug problem since he refrained from using cocaine during the day.
In 2002, Brunel was again associated with abuse after
Elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
supermodel
Karen Mulder
Karen Mulder (born 1 June 1970) is a Dutch model and singer. She is well known for her work with Versace, Dior, and Chanel as a supermodel during the 1990s. Mulder repeatedly was featured on the cover of ''Vogue'' and was also a Victoria's Secr ...
described to the French press the culture of sexual misconduct and manipulation prevalent in the modeling industry.
Virginia Giuffre
Virginia Louise Giuffre (''née'' Roberts; born August 9, 1983) is an American-Australian campaigner who offers support to victims of sex trafficking. She is an alleged victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre created Vict ...
accused Brunel of having sexually trafficked girls for Epstein. Giuffre claimed in a 2015 affidavit that Epstein bragged to her that he had “slept with over 1,000 of Brunel’s girls.”
Brunel responded by denying involvement in any illegal activities with Epstein, saying, "I strongly deny having committed any illicit act or any wrongdoing in the course of my work as a scouter or model agencies manager." From 1998 to 2005, Brunel was listed as a passenger in flight logs for Epstein's private plane on 25 trips.
He was also a regular visitor to the jail where Epstein was held in 2008, with at least 70 recorded visits.
Brunel sued Epstein in 2015, claiming that he and MC2 had "lost multiple contacts and business in the modelling business as a result of Epstein’s illegal actions."
He also alleged that Epstein had
obstructed justice by directing Brunel to avoid having his deposition taken in the criminal case against Epstein by the
Palm Beach Police Department
Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida. Located on a barrier island in east-central Palm Beach County, the town is separated from several nearby cities including West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach by the Intracoa ...
.
The lawsuit was later dismissed.
In 2019, it was revealed that Brunel was among those named in court documents from a civil suit by
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Virginia Louise Giuffre (''née'' Roberts; born August 9, 1983) is an American-Australian campaigner who offers support to victims of sex trafficking. She is an alleged victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre created Vic ...
against
Ghislaine Maxwell
Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British convicted sex offender and former socialite. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the financier and convicted sex o ...
. The documents were unsealed on August 9, 2019, a day before Epstein's death.
Giuffre alleges that she was
sexually trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to several high-profile individuals, including Brunel, while she was underage in the early 2000s.
Brunel was last seen in public at the Paris Country Club on 5 July 2019. Following
Epstein's death in August 2019, Brunel went into hiding; shortly thereafter, the
French National Police
The National Police (french: Police nationale), formerly known as the , is one of two national police forces of France, the other being the National Gendarmerie. The National Police is the country's main civil law enforcement agency, with primar ...
launched an investigation into him.
In September 2019, his Paris home and offices were searched by French investigators as part of a probe into sex trafficking by Epstein.
Arrest and indictment
On 16 December 2020, Brunel was intercepted by police at
Charles de Gaulle airport
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...
in Paris, as he was about to board a flight to
Dakar
Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in 2 ...
, Senegal. He was then placed under 'garde à vue' custody for questioning in relation to
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
,
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
,
criminal conspiracy
In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance o ...
, and
human trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...
, with all of the allegations involving minors.
Brunel was charged on 29 June 2021 with drugging and raping a 17-year-old girl in the 1990s. Brunel said he was innocent.
Personal life and death
Brunel was married to Helen Hogberg, a Swedish model. Hogberg divorced Brunel in 1979.
In 1988, he married his girlfriend of two years, American model Roberta Chirko.
The couple later divorced.
On 19 February 2022, Brunel was found dead in his jail cell in
La Santé prison
La Santé Prison (named after its location on the Rue de la Santé) (french: Maison d'arrêt de la Santé or ) is a prison operated by the French Prison Service of the Ministry of Justice located in the east of the Montparnasse district of the ...
, after allegedly
hanging himself.
References
External links
Video o
"American Girls in Paris" ''60 Minutes,''1988
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brunel, Jean-Luc
1946 births
2022 deaths
2022 suicides
20th-century French businesspeople
21st-century French businesspeople
Businesspeople from Paris
Date of birth missing
French male criminals
French expatriates in the United States
Jeffrey Epstein
People charged with rape
People charged with sex crimes
Suicides by hanging in France