Paris prosecutors said Saturday they were setting up a special team of judges to examine evidence that could link French nationals to the crimes of convicted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, AFP reported.
Following the release of US documents showing Epstein’s connections to prominent French figures, Paris prosecutors said they would also conduct a thorough review of the case of Jean-Luc Brunel, a former executive at a French modeling agency and a close associate of Epstein’s who died in custody in 2022, AFP reported.
The new team will work closely with prosecutors from the national financial crimes unit and police to open investigations into all suspected crimes involving French nationals, the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP.
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The goal is “to be able to extract any piece that could be usefully reused in a new investigative framework,” he said.
Brunel was discovered dead in his Paris prison cell in 2022 while facing charges of raping minors. After his death, the case against him was dismissed in 2023 and no one else was charged.
Prosecutors said the investigation showed Brunel was a “close friend of Jeffrey Epstein” who offered modeling jobs to young girls from poor backgrounds.
He committed sexual acts with underage girls in the United States, the US Virgin Islands, Paris and the south of France, they said.
According to the prosecutor’s office, ten women accused Brunel, several of whom described how they were led to drink alcohol and subjected to forced sexual penetration.
New cases
Several French public figures appeared in the latest release of material from the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files, although being mentioned does not in itself mean a crime has been committed.
Prosecutors said they were asked to investigate three new specific cases involving a French diplomat, a modeling agent and a musician.
At the request of the French Foreign Ministry, it looked into the reported appearance of senior diplomat Fabrice Aidan in a cache of Epstein-related documents released by US authorities.
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“An investigation is underway to gather various evidence that could substantiate this report,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Prosecutors also received a complaint filed by a Swedish woman against Daniel Siad, a model recruiter with close ties to Epstein. She accused him of “sexual acts which she describes as rape and which may have been committed in France in 1990”.
The office also received a complaint filed against French conductor Frederic Chaslin for alleged sexual harassment committed in 2016.
The recent release of Epstein-related documents prompted former French minister Jack Lang to step down as head of the Arab World Institute.
Lang denied any wrongdoing and said he was “shocked” to see his name listed in the records of an offshore company founded by Epstein in 2016.
The National Financial Prosecution Service announced that it had opened a preliminary investigation into Lang and his daughter Caroline Lang for “serious tax fraud and money laundering”.
Shortly after the announcement, Lang resigned as president of the Institute of the Arab World (IMA).
Jeffrey Epstein died in a US prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on child trafficking charges; authorities ruled his death a suicide.