French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel found dead in prison

New details are known about the last days of Jeffrey Epstein 0:45

(CNN) --

French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a longtime associate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been found dead in his prison cell, a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor's office said.

Brunel was found alone, hanged by sheets, in his cell at Santé prison in the French capital around 1:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, the prosecutor's office told CNN.

He did not comment on whether Brunel committed suicide and added that an investigation into the cause of death has been opened, "as is done systematically in these cases", entrusted to the French judicial police.

Brunel's French lawyers told CNN that their client's "decision was not guided by guilt, but by a sense of injustice."

“Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence.

He has multiplied his efforts to prove it.

A judge had released him a few months ago, and then he was re-incarcerated in undignified conditions," says a statement from lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain sent to CNN.

Accused of rape by several former top models, which he denied, the 75-year-old was subjected to a formal investigation in France at the end of June 2021 for "rape of a minor over 15 years of age", the prosecution confirmed.

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Brunel was arrested at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in December 2020 on charges of "rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assault of a minor under the age of 15, rape and sexual assault of a minor over the age of 15, harassment sexual exploitation, criminal associations and human trafficking to the detriment of minor victims for the purpose of sexual exploitation.”

He was released under judicial supervision for a few days in November 2021, before being returned to prison by decision of the Paris Court of Appeal.

He appealed the decision while the prosecution prepared its case for him.

Brunel's arrest was part of an investigation launched in 2019 by French prosecutors, targeting "acts of a sexual nature likely to have been committed by Jeffrey Epstein and possible accomplices," according to cross-checks made on information provided to the French prosecutor's office. Paris and exchanges with US authorities.

Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in the United States on August 10, 2019. He was awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, after pleading not guilty to federal charges that accuse him of operating a network of sex trafficking from 2002 to 2005 at his Manhattan mansion and his Palm Beach estate, and allegedly paying girls as young as 14 for sex.

A medical examiner ruled his death a suicide by hanging.