Jean-Luc Brunel, a former head of a French fashion agency suspected of supplying underaged girls to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was found hanged in his prison cell, CNN reported Saturday.
French officials said that Brunel, 75, was found alone, hanged with bedsheets in his jail cell at the Santé prison in the French capital at around 1:30 a.m. He was arrested on charges of rape of a minor and sexual harassment. His death is under investigation, but authorities said he died by suicide, the news outlet noted.
The former fashion boss was arrested in December of 2020 while on his way to Senegal for vacation. He was arrested at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in December 2020 on counts of “rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assault on a minor under 15, rape and sexual assault on a minor over 15, sexual harassment, criminal associations and human trafficking to the detriment of minor victims for the purposes of sexual exploitation,” the news outlet noted.
Similarly, Epstein was found dead in his cell that year, months after being charged in 2019 with trafficking underage girls from 2002 to 2005 at his Manhattan mansion and his Palm Beach estate, and allegedly paying girls as young as 14 for sex. He was awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after pleading not guilty to the federal charges.
