French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel has been the subject of disturbing sexual-abuse allegations for decades. Way back in the late s, numerous American models accused him of fostering an abusive culture at his agencies, though he faced no criminal consequences.
More recently, his alleged behavior has come under increased scrutiny due to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein: a billionaire financier accused of operating a sex ring of underage girls, for which Brunel was alleged to have recruited young women. After Epstein was found dead by apparent suicide in his jail cell in early August, and nationwide focus turned toward his alleged accomplices, Brunel vanished.
In the time that Brunel was missing, the allegations against him only mounted: In mid-August, two models accused Brunel of sexual assault, which in part compelled French officials to launch a criminal investigation into charges that Brunel had sexually assaulted women and minors in France. Then, on September 24, le Parisien reported that Brunel had been found in South America, after weeks of being in hiding. So β¦ what happens now? Below, everything we know about the allegations against Jean-Luc Brunel and the charges he faces.
Brunel, 72, is the former head of Karin Models and MC2, two prestigious international modeling agencies. In , American models who worked with Brunel went on 60 Minutes and described the abusive culture that Brunel allegedly fostered. In the episode, they say they were pressured into having sex with men out of fear that their career would suffer if they turned them down. Additionally, two of the featured women accused Brunel of drugging them; of those two, one said Brunel raped her while she was unconscious.
The allegations continued to mount. Over the past few decades, three models have alleged that Brunel sexually assaulted them in the s and s in and around Paris. The first model who accused him was Courtney Soerensen, one of the models featured on 60 Minutes. She says that in , when she was 19, she traveled from her home in Pennsylvania to Paris, where Brunel made sexual advances toward her, and ruined her career when she declined them.
