The Network of Jean-Luc Brunel
Trigger warning: this article discusses sexual assault and trafficking of minor victims and suicide.
On February 19, 2022, Jean-Luc Brunel died in La Santé Prison in Paris, while he awaited trial on charges of sexual harassment, human trafficking to the detriment of minor victims for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and rape of a minor over 15 years old. He was found hanging in his cell, his bedsheets wrapped around his neck. Two-and-a-half years earlier, his friend and business partner, Jeffrey Epstein, had also been found hanging by the neck in the Metropolitan Corrections Center, indicted on sex-trafficking minors.
Brunel rose to prominence in the late 1970s as the head of Karin Models in Paris. He claimed to have discovered the likes of Christy Turlington—and she was in fact represented by Karin in Paris in the ‘70s—though how much credit Brunel personally deserves is up for serious debate. But Brunel soon became notorious for other reasons.
Epstein and Brunel were reportedly introduced in the late 1980s or early 1990s by Ghislaine Maxwell. They forged a close friendship, traveling around the world and partying with other illustrious folks like Fabrizio Lombardo, close personal friend and consigliere to Harvey Weinstein. It is said that Jean-Luc visited Epstein 70 times during the year he was in prison. He flew on his plane more than 20 times. This is one of the rare relationships in Epstein’s life that fully spanned the late ‘80s all the way to his 2019 arrest.
But Brunel’s infamous reputation began long before he moved into Epstein’s apartment building on East 66th. In 1988, Diane Sawyer did a 60 Minutes episode on Brunel and the modeling industry, exposing the rampant sexual abuse of underage girls.
Nothing was done about it.
Brunel was banned from Karin Models in November 1999, following a BBC One investigative report exposing abuse in the modeling industry, including by Brunel himself. So in 2003, Epstein and Brunel decided to go into business. As Brunel’s relationship with his other business partners (his brother Arnaud and Étienne des Roys) soured, Epstein stepped up, becoming the guarantor for an almost-million-dollar line of credit through JPMorgan Chase, offered up to Brunel’s new agency, MC2 Model Management.
This is where things get interesting. At some point JPMorgan Chase grew skittish about extending lines of credit guaranteed by Epstein to a modeling agency, when Epstein himself had a pending plea deal for raping a minor. Internal JP Morgan communications expressed concern:
“Are we comfortable taking on additional credit exposure just ahead of his pending plea arrangement?”
But JP Morgan would continue to fund Epstein’s business ventures for another 10 years, including 134 separate bank accounts Epstein used in girls’ names to funnel money in and out of the country.
In 2010, Brunel’s bookkeeper, Maritza Vasquez, gave a deposition about Brunel, Epstein, and a long list of head-hunters who gathered girls from all over the world. She explained how easily Epstein and others signed off on EB-1A (“Einstein”) visas for the girls, as young as 13, who filed the paperwork, and what was expected of the children while they were under the supervision of Brunel’s network of powerful friends. This included the story of Nadia Marcinkova, one of the women given immunity in Epstein’s 2008 “Sweetheart Deal,” who came to the U.S. as young as 14 years old, to work as a model. But she never walked the runway.
In Vasquez’s statement, she revealed that not only was Brunel defrauding his models—bringing them into the country without contracts, legal visas, or modeling work—but he was defrauding Epstein, too.
“I don't even know that Mr. Epstein knows that Jean-Luc lied to him all the time…Jean-Luc presented false statements to him. You know, Mr. Epstein wanted to see that the company was a profitable company and we had to hide all those numbers. And we had to give him, like, positive numbers so he can see that the company was making money but in belief always was in red.” - Maritza Vasquez
Which begs the obvious question, why would any older straight men get involved in scouting or modeling management as a business if it wasn’t profitable? In general, modeling isn’t great from an economic perspective. It’s not particularly lucrative. The big agencies—Ford, Elite, IMG—bring in millions of dollars in revenue each year and are reasonably profitable. But your mid-tier boutique agencies? Razor-thin profit margins.
FBI: “What was Jeffrey Epstein getting out of MC2?”
Vasquez: “The only thing that I can think he was getting was the girls. Nothing else, because he has all the money.”
FBI: “And the company wasn’t making money anyway.”
Vasquez: “No. The company wasn’t making money. It wasn’t at all. So the only thing he was—I believe he wanted to get involved because of the girls. That’s it.”
By 2022, both men would be dead, hanging by their necks in jail. The number of girls they abused may never be known. But the people who helped them gather underage girls from all over the world have not been held accountable. This includes Daniel Siad, Brunel’s long-time modeling scout, who procured girls for Epstein. He is allegedly somewhere in France.
“In This busyness I feel like fisherman some time 1 cache quick, some time no fish, I really did good work for scouting in Scandinavia most of them will be ready to start with 2morrow at list 5 of them sixteen and seventeen will be ready for next year. But I can’t send you there pictures as know.” - Daniel Siad
If you would like to learn more about Epstein’s modeling pipeline, you can watch Carly P Reilly’s video breakdown of the relationship the two men shared
“More than any other, the modeling industry was where Epstein carried out his criminal enterprise, through agencies like MC2 and NEXT and alongside model agents, scouts, and managers, like Jean-Luc Brunel, Daniel Said, and Faith Kates, who served as everything from eager accomplices to (at best) unwitting enablers.”
Or for a reading of the complete 2010 deposition of Maritza Vasquez, Jean-Luc Brunel’s bookkeeper, you can click the following (scheduled for 6/5/2026 at 9pm ET)
Carly P Reilly’s Substack Read Receipts On takes deep dives into how power really works — by reading the receipts, following the money, and connecting the dots to determine who's actually guilty
Ellie Leonard’s Substack The Panicked Writer focuses on survivor justice and investigating the Epstein Files
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As someone who has worked with kids for nearly 50 years ( now retired) and who worked with girls of sexual assault, our focus MUST BE on education. We can't leave it solely up to parents because sometimes its the parents, relatives,teachers, clergy who are doing the abusing. I dont have an answer on how to implement this type of education but if we EMPOWER the children, THEY will be less likely to be victims.
He was a disgusting pig and was able to go to hell without facing justice.
We have to make sure that this never happens again!