Prince Andrew may face questions over link to Epstein’s friend Jean-Luc Brunel
French investigators could interview Andrew about links to model agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who faces charges of raping minors.
French investigators may seek to question Prince Andrew about his links with Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modelling agent who faces charges of raping minors in connection with the US financier Jeffrey Epstein, it has been reported.
The Duke of York’s testimony could be sought by three investigating judges who notified Mr Brunel on Friday of preliminary charges of raping girls between 15 and 18 years old. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said Mr Brunel, 74, who was a close associate of Epstein, was also “suspected of having organised the transport and lodging of girls or young women on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein”.
Mr Brunel, who has denied all allegations against him, was also placed on preliminary charges of sexually harassing a 16-year-old girl in 2016.
The investigators, who remanded Mr Brunel in custody after he was arrested at a Paris airport last week on his way to a holiday in Senegal, are seeking to establish the nature of his alleged activities on behalf of Epstein, a convicted sex criminal who killed himself in a New York prison last year.
The turning point in the French inquiry, which was opened last year, came when the investigators conducted a video interview on November 24 with Virginia Roberts Giuffre. The former model said in New York court papers that Mr Brunel had offered modelling jobs to girls as young as 12 and took them to the US to “farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein”.
Ms Roberts Giuffre, 37, said she had had sex with Mr Brunel several times when she was between the ages of 16 and 19. She also said she had been forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was 17. Prince Andrew has denied all the allegations.
Prosecutors in the US have complained that he has not responded to their requests to interview him, although his lawyers insist that he has offered to speak to them.
The French investigators declined to say whether they would seek to interview Prince Andrew, although some newspapers claimed that was their intention.
There is no suggestion Prince Andrew is involved in the allegations surrounding Mr Brunel.
The French investigation has faced obstacles because many or most of the alleged offences in the Brunel-Epstein case are covered by a statute of limitations that precludes rape prosecutions for events more than 20 years old and 30 years in the case of minors.
The prosecutor did not say which cases were the basis for the preliminary rape charge.
The French investigators have yet to question three former models who have come forward to testify that they were raped by Mr Brunel at the start of their careers in Paris in the 1990s, according to Anne-Claire Le Jeune, the lawyer for several of Brunel’s alleged victims. Their alleged rapes do not fall under the statute of limitations.
The investigating judges will decide within months whether there is evidence to try Mr Brunel or whether to drop or modify the charges. They have warned him that their inquiries could lead them to charge him with procuring and trafficking girls for Epstein.
The Times
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