First revealed in Heroine and Denník N.
When the US Division of Justice revealed new components of the recordsdata within the case of serial abuser and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein two months in the past, his personal conversations with varied folks additionally contained references to Czechia and Slovakia.
The paperwork confirmed that folks from Epstein’s circle had been in search of women for intercourse right here. What remained unclear was the place they met them and the way they gained their belief. The modus operandi of Epstein’s brokers is simply revealed within the testimonies of particular person ladies or collaborators.
One such encounter was described by a Czech lady whom, for the sake of anonymity, we are going to name Andrea on this article. In 2003, she was approached on the Prague modelling competitors Topmodel of the New Millennium by Jean-Luc Brunel, a long-time shut affiliate of Epstein.
At first of the brand new millennium, the company Firm Fashions used it to search for new faces aged 15 to 18 and promised them the launch of a profitable modelling profession.
“There have been modelling companies from New York, Paris, Milan. And Jean-Luc Brunel was there as effectively,” Andrea recalled the competitors the place Brunel tried to lure her to Paris for modelling work.
From 1978, he ran the main Paris company Karin Fashions and in 1989 he was behind the founding of Subsequent Mannequin Administration. In New York, on the flip of the millennium, he then arrange the company MC2 Administration. The truth that his final company would turn into a direct hyperlink to Epstein’s bed room was not but identified.
He met high mannequin Simona Krainová in a bar and helped her in the beginning of her profession
Andrea nonetheless remembers the second when Jean-Luc Brunel approached her father with the supply that Paris was ready for her. He got here throughout as convincing and her father discovered him very likeable. “Jean-Luc was this older, charismatic gentleman. He was very variety, all the time smiling. A good man. Anybody would most likely have fallen for something he stated,” she recalled.
Her father, nevertheless, refused to let her go to France with out being accompanied by her dad and mom. “And so nothing got here of it.”
Neither Jochová nor the co-organiser of the competitors, Nikoleta Schick, recall Brunel’s presence as we speak. In response to sources of Heroine and Denník N, nevertheless, he sat on the jury of this contest. This was commonplace; he appeared as a juror at a number of modelling occasions. One participant in a global dialogue group for modelling scouts described assembly Brunel in Brussels in 1999. “We had been on the jury collectively. He was a weirdo who carried a suitcase with thirty completely different pairs of sun shades and was consistently snorting cocaine,” she wrote.
A number of folks we spoke to highlighted Brunel’s charisma, affability and sense of enjoyable. They embrace Slovak modelling agent and photographer Nataša, who labored in New York for a few years and now lives in France.
“I knew Jean-Luc. He was candy. He got here throughout as a typical Frenchman. He didn’t appear disgusting to me. However for my part he was all the time excessive,” stated the Slovak, whom Brunel used to go to at residence. On the time, Nataša held castings in her residence studio in Prague. “Scouts from everywhere in the world got here to us and he was considered one of them. Jean-Luc got here to us underneath the banner of the companies Karin Fashions and MC2.”
Former Ford Fashions company chief Joey Hunter seen him equally, telling Heroine and Denník N that Brunel was very charming. “I by no means noticed that horrible aspect of him. When he was in my presence or within the presence of fashions on the company, he was very charismatic and sort. I believe many of the women I represented didn’t have unfavourable experiences with him,” the previous colleague stated.
When info then began to emerge about trafficking in ladies and sexual violence that Brunel and his buddies dedicated towards younger ladies from everywhere in the world, it provoked blended reactions amongst professionals within the area, in accordance with the Slovak Nataša.
“Individuals in our world scouting group on Fb couldn’t consider what had been discovered about him. They described him as a gentleman, an angel and a very good boss who carefully sorted his fashions. His colleagues wrote that that they had not observed any inappropriate behaviour from him,” Nataša stated, describing the reactions on the time.
At first look, then, it was not obvious what the victims later described in the course of the investigation of Epstein and his confederate Ghislaine Maxwell. “Epstein’s enterprise companion Jean-Luc Brunel was my agent. He was a person who trafficked ladies internationally for forty years. He was 100 occasions worse than Maxwell. She was dangerous and responsible, however in contrast with him she was nothing,” one of many victims said, in accordance with recordsdata launched by the US Division of Justice.
“He himself was a official modelling agent whose character was, sadly, each Jekyll and Hyde. On the one hand, he operated as a real agent, on the opposite he was a repulsive trafficker in ladies. In my opinion, he acted each for his personal pleasure and really rapidly additionally for the pleasure of his buddies,” former New York Instances editor and writer of the bestseller Mannequin Michael Gross stated in an interview with Heroine and Denník N.
Brunel’s former colleague Hunter additionally stated that, like most influential males within the modelling world, Brunel distinguished between profitable fashions and those that merely dreamed of a profitable profession. “He didn’t drag a mannequin who was incomes a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} into his shit. In that respect he centered extra on women who couldn’t be fashions, though they hoped to be,” Hunter stated.
Brunel found ladies resembling Christy Turlington and Sharon Stone, and Czech high mannequin Simona Krainová additionally labored at his company Karin Fashions. When she was 19, Brunel approached her in considered one of Prague’s bars. She began modelling 9 months later. “Jean-Luc Brunel was among the many individuals who helped me quite a bit firstly of my profession,” Krainová stated for Heroine and Denník N.
Once we requested Krainová about Brunel’s connections with Epstein and his scandals linked to trafficking in ladies and sexual violence towards fashions, she burdened that after their preliminary cooperation she had not been in touch with him for a few years and had been unaware of his scandals.
“Sure, prior to now I labored for the company Madison Fashions and after just a few years I moved to the company Karin Fashions, the place I used to be represented by head booker Ruth Malka and Helen Renaud, with whom I dealt with all work issues,” Krainová stated. “I used to be by no means a witness to any inappropriate behaviour, nor did I expertise something like that, so I’ve nothing so as to add on this matter.”
Daniela Peštová additionally labored at Karin Fashions, however she didn’t reply to questions; as did Slovak nationwide Naďa Marcinková, who’s now a key witness within the Epstein investigation.
Marcinková moved to Karin Fashions after leaving the company that organised Topmodel of the New Millennium
The competitors Topmodel of the New Millennium, at which Jean-Luc Brunel observed the Czech Andrea, can be linked to the Slovak sufferer of Epstein, Naďa Marcinková. She had taken half in it three years earlier.
Lenka Jochová, then director of the Czech company Firm Fashions, which organised the competitors, knew Marcinková effectively. “Naďa was my mannequin. In 2000 she despatched her pictures to Firm Fashions. At the moment she was sixteen. She entered our competitors, which was then gained by Hana Soukupová and Naďa Marcinková got here second,” Jochová recalled.
Jochová described Marcinková from this era as clever, reasonably quiet and shy. She had a household background, and on her journeys to Prague she was accompanied by her father.
“Whereas I used to be working the company she travelled to Milan and flew to Japan. However we all the time mixed it with college, which was her precedence. Then in 2003 I left Firm Fashions and arrange my very own company, Glamour, the place a number of fashions moved with me. I didn’t select Naďa. And that was additionally as a result of I knew modelling was not her precedence. She was not bold. It appeared to me she didn’t have the temperament for it,” Jochová stated.
After Jochová left, Marcinková moved to the Paris company Karin Fashions. “Karin was working very effectively even on the time when Brunel was there,” Jochová stated. In response to sources of Heroine and Denník N, Marcinková ultimately settled in Brunel’s New York company MC2, which was linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
It was at the moment that Lenka Jochová realized that Marcinková had modified considerably. She was bolder, moved round at events and within the firm of rich males. “That’s not how I keep in mind her. I do know her as a intelligent, shy woman.”
Brunel’s company was a direct hyperlink to Epstein’s bed room
When modelling skilled Joey Hunter determined to depart the company Ford Fashions in 2002, Jean-Luc Brunel supplied him cooperation on opening the New York department of Karin Fashions. At first, it was normal enterprise.
