Jeffrey Epstein Associate Jean-Luc Brunel Held Woman Hostage: Lawsuit

As the world waits for the unsealing of hundreds of court filings related to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a new lawsuit has surfaced in Los Angeles accusing Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel of holding a woman hostage at a Canadian estate for sex abuse by multiple men.

The new accuser, suing under the pseudonym Jessica Kramer, alleges she was an 18-year-old model working in New York when Brunel — who was found hanged in a Paris prison cell two years ago in a reported suicide eerily similar to Epstein’s — “solicited” her employment. She claims that on one occasion, Brunel and his unidentified “employees” drove her across the Canadian border and held her captive at the private residence.

“She could not leave and there were numerous attempts of offensive touching, sexual assaults including groping, as the men tried unsuccessfully to arouse her by providing her with drugs in which she did not ingest,” the filing obtained by Rolling Stone states. “After a few days of being falsely imprisoned at the home, she woke and realized that Jean and his employees were getting into their cars and leaving. She immediately then decided to try and escape through a window and was successful as she hitched a ride back to New York.”

According to the 16-page complaint, Brunel, who founded Karin Models and MC2 Model Management, “sexually abused and assaulted” the new plaintiff at various locations including Los Angeles. The woman alleges Brunel and his staff sought out models and “young girls” with promises of “lucrative” modeling gigs, but “these girls, including the plaintiff, were drugged, sexually assaulted, (subjected to) false imprisonment and sexually abused instead.”

The new lawsuit doesn’t give any dates and never mentions Epstein. The plaintiff says she’s still under the age of 40 and residing in Los Angeles. “Plaintiff fears embarrassment and further psychological damage if (her) identity as a victim of sexual abuse were to become publicly known,” her new filing states.

A lawyer who was representing Brunel at the time of his death did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Credited with launching the careers of Christy Turlington and Milla Jovovich, Brunel was 75 years old and fighting sex trafficking charges in France when he was discovered hanged in his cell in La Santé prison in Paris in February 2022. The reported suicide came three years after Epstein was found dead in federal custody with a bedsheet noose around his neck in 2019. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide.

Brunel vehemently denied accusations he supplied underage girls and vulnerable young models to Epstein’s sex ring, but Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre named him repeatedly in court filings and deposition testimony. “A lot of the girls came from poor countries or poor backgrounds, and [Brunel] lured them in with a promise of making good money,” Giuffre said in a 2015 affidavit. “Jeffrey Epstein has told me that he has slept with over 1,000 of Brunel’s girls, and everything that I have seen confirms this claim.”

After Brunel’s death, Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, tweeted, “The suicide of Jean-Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and young women, ends another chapter. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to face him in a final trial to hold him accountable, but gratified that I was able to testify in person last year to keep him in prison.” Brunel also was mentioned in another lawsuit filed by Priscilla Doe against Epstein’s estate in 2019. In that case, the plaintiff alleged Brunel was part of an Epstein-organized trip to the Virginia Islands attended by Woody Allen. (A spokeswoman for Allen previously told the Wall Street Journal that the movie director “never” had a business meeting with Epstein and “not once spent time with him” without his wife Soon-Yi Previn “also being present.”)

The public allegations against Brunel stretch back at least as far as 1988, when a 60 Minutes report titled “American Girls in Paris” accused him of drugging and raping young models. After Brunel’s death, his lawyers said he “never stopped declaring his innocence.” Lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain said in a statement that Brunel’s reported suicide “was not guided by guilt, but by a deep sentiment of injustice.”

As the world waits for the unsealing of hundreds of court filings related to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a new lawsuit has surfaced in Los Angeles accusing Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel of holding a woman hostage at a Canadian estate for sex abuse by multiple men.

The new accuser, suing under the pseudonym Jessica Kramer, alleges she was an 18-year-old model working in New York when Brunel — who was found hanged in a Paris prison cell two years ago in a reported suicide eerily similar to Epstein’s — “solicited” her employment. She claims that on one occasion, Brunel and his unidentified “employees” drove her across the Canadian border and held her captive at the private residence.

“She could not leave and there were numerous attempts of offensive touching, sexual assaults including groping, as the men tried unsuccessfully to arouse her by providing her with drugs in which she did not ingest,” the filing obtained by Rolling Stone states. “After a few days of being falsely imprisoned at the home, she woke and realized that Jean and his employees were getting into their cars and leaving. She immediately then decided to try and escape through a window and was successful as she hitched a ride back to New York.”

According to the 16-page complaint, Brunel, who founded Karin Models and MC2 Model Management, “sexually abused and assaulted” the new plaintiff at various locations including Los Angeles. The woman alleges Brunel and his staff sought out models and “young girls” with promises of “lucrative” modeling gigs, but “these girls, including the plaintiff, were drugged, sexually assaulted, (subjected to) false imprisonment and sexually abused instead.”

The new lawsuit doesn’t give any dates and never mentions Epstein. The plaintiff says she’s still under the age of 40 and residing in Los Angeles. “Plaintiff fears embarrassment and further psychological damage if (her) identity as a victim of sexual abuse were to become publicly known,” her new filing states.

A lawyer who was representing Brunel at the time of his death did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Credited with launching the careers of Christy Turlington and Milla Jovovich, Brunel was 75 years old and fighting sex trafficking charges in France when he was discovered hanged in his cell in La Santé prison in Paris in February 2022. The reported suicide came three years after Epstein was found dead in federal custody with a bedsheet noose around his neck in 2019. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide.

Brunel vehemently denied accusations he supplied underage girls and vulnerable young models to Epstein’s sex ring, but Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre named him repeatedly in court filings and deposition testimony. “A lot of the girls came from poor countries or poor backgrounds, and [Brunel] lured them in with a promise of making good money,” Giuffre said in a 2015 affidavit. “Jeffrey Epstein has told me that he has slept with over 1,000 of Brunel’s girls, and everything that I have seen confirms this claim.”

After Brunel’s death, Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, tweeted, “The suicide of Jean-Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and young women, ends another chapter. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to face him in a final trial to hold him accountable, but gratified that I was able to testify in person last year to keep him in prison.” Brunel also was mentioned in another lawsuit filed by Priscilla Doe against Epstein’s estate in 2019. In that case, the plaintiff alleged Brunel was part of an Epstein-organized trip to the Virginia Islands attended by Woody Allen. (A spokeswoman for Allen previously told the Wall Street Journal that the movie director “never” had a business meeting with Epstein and “not once spent time with him” without his wife Soon-Yi Previn “also being present.”)

The public allegations against Brunel stretch back at least as far as 1988, when a 60 Minutes report titled “American Girls in Paris” accused him of drugging and raping young models. After Brunel’s death, his lawyers said he “never stopped declaring his innocence.” Lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain said in a statement that Brunel’s reported suicide “was not guided by guilt, but by a deep sentiment of injustice.”