- A former model provided a detailed account of a night in 1987 during which she alleges that Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, raped her.
- The alleged incident occurred when she was 26 years old and Brunel was in his early 40s, and happened when she said she believes Brunel spiked her drink in his Paris apartment.
- The fashion industry veteran is currently facing allegations of sexual assault and harassment from several former models, with incidents reported as happening as recent as 2015.
- Brunel was the subject of a CBS's "60 Minutes" aired in 1988 in which several young models accused him of sexual misconduct, including groping and other sexual advances to drugging women's drinks and rape. The allegations didn't have any apparent effect and sparked no investigation.
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A former model detailed a new allegation against Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, who she claims drugged and raped her.
The French woman, who spoke anonymously to CBS News, said Brunel, who founded Karin Models and MC2 Model Management, spiked her drink and raped her in Paris.
She said the attack took place in 1987, when she was 26 and Brunel was in his early 40s, after the two had been out clubbing and she woke up naked and confused in his bed.
"I know I was raped. I know that," she told CBS
Brunel offered her a drink after asking her to come back to his apartment to pick something up, she said, "the next thing I remember was waking up in his bed and he was beside me."
"He was sleeping and I was naked," she told CBS. "I was wondering how I got there."
She then described getting dressed in a panic before calling her friend Rafic and saying she couldn't find the door out of the apartment, so she would have to jump.
"He said, 'No, it"s like four stories up,'" she said. "Luckily he was there to calm me down and everything because I would have jumped."
Rafic told CBS News that she "was afraid, panicked" when he saw her that night, and her face was "not even pale, she was white."
"You never forget [the] expression on your friend"s face when something like that happens," he added.
The woman said that at the time, she didn't report the alleged rape to police initially because she didn't speak French fluently and because she ultimately "just wanted to forget everything." However, more than 30 years later when she learned that investigators were interested in Brunel and his possible connection to a sex crimes and conspiracy investigation into Epstein, she felt she had to come forward with her account.
Brunel is a key figure in the Epstein investigation, years after several allegations were largely ignored
Erin Brethauer for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Courtney Powell, a former model with an agency run by Jean Luc Brunel, poses for a picture at her home in Livermore, California on August 15, 2019.
Brunel came into the spotlight in September 2019 when French investigators opened a case into allegations against Epstein after the financier died by suicide while awaiting trial, reaching out to possible victims and triggering a police search of Epstein's luxury Paris apartment.
The two were first formally connected when Epstein financed Brunel's Miami-based modeling agency, MC2. The fashion industry veteran is currently facing allegations of sexual assault and harassment from four former models, with incidents reported as happening as recent as 2015.
Brunel was the subject of a CBS's "60 Minutes" aired in 1988 in which several young models accused him of sexual misconduct, including groping and other sexual advances including drugging women's drinks and rape. The allegations didn't have any apparent effect and sparked no investigation.
The modeling agent has been reported as one of Epstein's key ties to the fashion world, as he has faced several years of allegations that he supplied underage girls to Epstein, as well as drugging and raping young, female models himself. He has denied all allegations.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a Florida native whose testimony has led allegations that Epstein was at the center of a sexual pyramid scheme in which his employees and associates recruited young or underage girls for "massages" in his Palm Beach and New York mansions that often ended in molestation or rape, has said Brunel was a key figure in Epstein's network of abusers.
In a 2015 affidavit, Giuffre said Epstein groomed her for sex with his grown men, including his high-profile friends and associates like Brunel and Prince Andrew, who has flatly denied all allegations.
"Brunel would offer the girls 'modeling' jobs," Guiffre said. "A lot of the girls came from poor countries or poor backgrounds, and he lured them in with a promise of making good money."
Brunel reportedly vanished after Epstein's August suicide as reports surfaced he had been quietly offloading ownership of his modeling agencies.
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