Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother says he fears for his pedophile sister’s safety after hearing that Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged pimp was found hanged in a Paris jail cell.
Epstein’s French modelling agent friend Jean-Luc Brunel, 75, who allegedly procured more than a thousand women and girls for the pedophile financier to sleep with, died on Saturday in an apparent prison suicide. Epstein himself was found hanging in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting child sex charges aged 66.
‘It’s really shocking,’ Ian Maxwell told the New York Post. ‘Another death by hanging in a high-security prison. My reaction is one of total shock and bewilderment.’
Maxwell, who is based in London, said that although his sister, who is awaiting sentencing for child sex trafficking at a Brooklyn jail, is not suicidal, she is on suicide watch by the jail.
Ghislaine Maxwell (pictured) was found guilty of sex trafficking minors, giving way to federal prosecutors to bring her to justice for her involvement in helping Epstein with luring underage girls before he would sexually assault them
Jeffrey Epstein, left, was found hanged in his New York jail cell in August 2019 while his alleged pimp Jean-Luc Brunel, pictured right, was found hanged in his Paris jail cell February 19
‘Despite the psychiatrist advising to the contrary, she was deemed a suicide risk and they are continuing to wake her up every 15 minutes in the night. It’s a complete violation of prisoner rights and human rights,’ Ian Maxwell said.
Maxwell added that it was ‘ironic’ that Maxwell is subjected to suicide watch while Epstein and Brunel were not.
Brunel was found hanging in his cell in La Santé, Paris days after Prince Andrew, 62, agreed to settle Virginia Roberts’s lawsuit accusing him of sex abuse after they met allegedly through Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, 60.
His death has triggered fresh conspiracies over whether he and Epstein were murdered to keep them quiet about powerful friends who also joined in with their child sex abuse, although there is no indication of foul play in either death.
The death has shaken Maxwell’s family, including her brother Ian Maxwell, 65, who said he worries for his sister’s safety inside Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Maxwell is currently being jailed in the infamous MDC which she has repeatedly complained about, calling it a ‘living hell’ where she has been ‘assaulted and abused’
Brunel’s death has shaken Maxwell’s family, including her brother Ian Maxwell, 65, (pictured) who said he worries for his sister’s safety inside Metropolitan Detention Center
In December of last year, Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking minors, giving way to federal prosecutors to bring her to justice for her involvement in helping Epstein with luring underage girls before he would sexually assault them.
She is now facing 65 years behind bars in a federal prison – prompting speculation she could now ‘flip’ and discuss the actions of others within Epstein’s circle in a bid to receive a lighter sentence.
Brunel’s death in an alleged hanging will fuel conspiracy theories around the Epstein affair after the financier also died in prison while awaiting trial in what authorities concluded was a hanging (Maxwell, Epstein and Brunel pictured together)
Jean-Luc Brunel is thought to have been alone at the time of his death and there were no cameras to record his final hours, according to an investigating source at La Santé in Paris. Pictured, the prison’s corridor
Shortly after she was found guilty, Maxwell’s family rallied to grant her a new trial.
Prosecutors themselves have expressed concerns after one juror later revealed he was the victim of child sex abuse.
That juror, Scotty David, insisted he answered all questions honestly, although it is still unclear if he disclosed he’d been sexually abused – a fact that could have seen him excluded from the jury pool.
‘This is a shocking result, which reflects the fact that Ghislaine has been denied the right to a fair trial, starting with the appalling conditions in which she has been held for over 18 months and which seriously impacted her ability to participate in her own defense,’ her big brother Ian said at the time.
He added: ‘I am confident of the strong grounds for appeal both legal and evidential and that my sister will be vindicated and ultimately found innocent.
‘These were (Jeffrey) Epstein’s crimes and he’s not here to pay that price, and she has been made to pay the price that he should have paid.’
Maxwell is currently being jailed in the infamous MDC which she has repeatedly complained about, calling it a ‘living hell’ where she has been ‘assaulted and abused.’
Maxwell – the jet-setting daughter of a wealthy British newspaper tycoon; a glamorous society darling who mingled with former presidents, billionaires and royals – complained that her treatment in the MDC amounted to torture.
Her family wanted to take the case to the United Nations, claiming that she was subjected to inhumane treatment – fed rotten food, kept in excessively hot and cold conditions, and living in a cell that flooded with raw sewage.
Brunel’s death in an alleged hanging will fuel conspiracy theories around the Epstein affair after the financier also died in prison while awaiting trial in what authorities concluded was a hanging.
Controversy over Epstein’s death has been fueled by the fact that prison video cameras at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correction Center were not running at the time Epstein died in the cell he shared with another inmate.
Brunel is thought to have been alone at the time of his death and there were no cameras to record his final hours, according to an investigating source at La Santé – one of the toughest jails in France.
‘A night patrol found his lifeless body at about 1am,’ said an investigating source. ‘A judicial enquiry has been launched, and early evidence points to suicide.’
Following the news of his death, Virginia Roberts said she was ‘disappointed’ that she was not able to face Brunel at a ‘final trial to hold him accountable’ and added that his alleged suicide ‘ends another chapter’.
Taking to Twitter following the news of his death on Saturday, she wrote: ‘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.’
It was in December 2020 that Brunel was indicted after two days of interviews by an examining magistrate and specialist police from an anti-pedophilia unit.
He was arrested at the city’s Charles de Gaulle airport on while trying to board a plane to Dakar, Senegal, telling detectives ‘I’m going on holiday’.
While CCTV is commonplace in the corridors and gateways of French prisons, the vast majority of cells are not under video surveillance. This is ensure a degree of privacy, and to make sure that European human rights legislation is not violated.
Inmates are sometimes known to record events using devices including mobile phones, but Brunel is thought to have been in a single occupancy cell, said the source.
‘There is an investigation going on to confirm all this, but at the moment it looks like he killed himself alone, and it was a routine patrol that found his body hanging,’ he said.
The source added: ‘There were no obvious fears for the prisoner’s health, and he was not on a suicide watch, having already been in prison for many months.’
The official enquiry into Brunel’s sudden death was on Saturday being carried out by offices from the 3rd Judicial Police district in Paris. An autopsy was set to be carried out, to establish the exact cause of death.
Forensic officers were meanwhile examining the cell where Brunel died. La Santé, which was built in the 19th Century, has housed some of the most dangerous prisoners in recent French history.
There is a so-called ‘VIP section’ where inmates include ‘super terrorist’ and mass killer Carlos the Jackal, whose real name is Ilich Ramírez Sánchez.
Brunel was originally indicted and placed in pre-trial detention in December 2020 for the ‘rape of a minor over 15 years old’ and harassing two other women.
He was also suspected of being a ‘pimp’ for Epstein, after becoming a close friend of the billionaire financier.
Brunel had been placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for acts of ‘human trafficking’ and ‘exploiting minors for the sexual purposes.’
Epstein – an old friend and business of associate of Brunel’s – committed suicide in his prison cell in New York on August 10 2019, while awaiting trial for a range of offences, including trafficking minors for sex, and multiple rapes.
