Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
where we left off with the Wall Street Journal article
authored by Kadijas Aftar and Caitlin Ostroth. Bruneau was arrested
in twenty twenty in France, where French prosecutors were investigating
him on allegations of rape and supplying girls to Epstein.
He died in jail in twenty twenty two. Maxwell was
found guilty in twenty twenty one and is serving a
twenty year sentence. So the people out there that want
to play some antics and want to play word games
about Jeffrey Epstein being a human trafficker are starting from
a place of intellectual dishonesty. Now it's a fact that
he was never convicted, but what does that even mean.
That means he's innocent or does that mean that the
government didn't have the willpower to go after him because
we know the evidence was there, So it comes down
to willpower. Then you have to ask yourself why what
motivates a decision such as that that spans over multiple administrations,
And for me, there's only one reason, only one answer,
and that is that Jeffrey Epstein was too valuable of
an asset for them to burn at the time. That's
all that makes sense. Prosecutors in Paris on Saturday said
that they would re examine the case of Brunel and
set up a special team to analyze evidence that could
implicate French nationals in the Epstein case. Look, whoever was involved,
wherever they were, they need to be tracked down. And
anybody that was engaging in abusing girls, especially with Jeffrey Epstein,
needs to be held to account. And anybody who facilitated
that or helped that along the way, they should be
outed as well. And if they did anything criminal, financially
or otherwise, hang them by their toes too. This was
another instance of Epstein attempting to engage miss Rumler on
a matter about which she had no knowledge, and she
appropriately directed him to his legal counsel, said Jennifer Connolly,
a spokeswoman for Rumler. She declined to specify which legal counsel.
Rumbler has said she never represented Epstein and regretted her
association with him. No, she regretted being outed. Did you
regret the soup? Did you regret the handbags? Did you
regret god knows what else. It's always the same story, right, Oh,
I'm so sorry that I was hanging out with so
and so. No, you're not sorry. You're sorry you got caught.
The shit's laughable. It's like somebody like Brian Kohlberger bro
goes to jail and all of a sudden he finds God. Okay, great,
Maybe you should have found God before you murdered four people.
But it's all good, right. He regrets it. As the
extent of her relationship with Epstein became clear in the
recent files, Rumler said last week that she would resign
from Goldman Sachs, where she is general counsel, in June.
Poe said he didn't talk with Rumler or Epstein about
Brunell on May fourth, twenty sixteen, or at any other time.
He said he had a schedule called that day with
Rumler to discuss his work on a legal motion to
quash a subpoena directed at Epstein. My engagement by Jeffrey
Epstein was limited, Poe said, adding that he terminated work
for Epstein in August of twenty sixteen. They all want
to run away. They all have the marathon shoes on.
Don't they I had no idea, what are you talking about?
Wasn't me? I never was at Jeffrey Epstein's house, And
then we find out you were, and then it just
becomes a different excuse and the goalposts get moved again.
Long before his role in the Epstein case came to light,
Brunell already had a sordid reputation in the fashion world.
In nineteen eighty eight, CBS sixty Minutes aired an investigation
into modeling agencies featuring women who said they were drug
by Brunell and expected to have sex with his male
friends in order to get modeling work. I guess they
were all lying to just a bunch of women who
are manipulating guys like Jean Luke Brunel. The real victim
here is Jean Luke Brunel and Jeffrey Epstein. Bro Yo,
that's literally the narrative that we're getting from some people.
One woman on camera said that Brunell had drugged and
raped her. No criminal charges wherever filed, and Brunell, who
denied the allegations, continued to operate freely cycling through agencies.
By the two thousands, Brunell and Epstein had forged a
deep relationship. Flight log show that Brunell was a frequent
passenger on Epstein's private jet starting around two thousand and
that's when the pipeline opened up. And I really encourage
all of you to take a look at that Maritza
Vasquez deposition. It is very telling and she gives you
a bird's eye view of what MC squared was up
to when it comes to bringing girls in and set
them into the belly of the beast. In two thousand
and five, Epstein wired up to one million dollars to
Brunell to help him launch EMC squared Model Management, which
opened offices in New York and Miami later that year.
The agency's name appeared to be an inside joke, with
people believing that in the equation E equals MC squared,
the E stood for Epstein. Well, I don't doubt that
for a minute. This was Epstein's company. We all know
that Brunell was the middleman. He was the face, right,
Oh well, I'm the modeling scout. But the real money,
the power was coming from Epstein behind the scenes. Epstein
used the agency as a way to procure women and
as a payroll vehicle, securing work visas for young women. Yeah,
a lot of immigration fraud. Let's talk about that. All
these people out here with their contrarian views about human trafficking,
please explain all of the immigration fraud. Why we're work
visas being obtained, Why we're girls being brought to America
being told they are going to be models and never
getting a modeling gig. Please explain all of it. Now
what they'll say is, oh, well, we don't believe the girls.
So again they're coming from a place of intellectual dishonesty,
and I have no desire to even conversate with people
like that. Now, look, there is always a place for
contrarian views, and people should always question what's going on.
Whatever the narrative is, it should be questioned. But I
think there is such an overwhelming amount of evidence here
that it makes people just look stupid. Honestly, it makes
you look stupid. Now, I'm not saying that people shouldn't
question some of the more outlandish commentary. I mean we should.
I've told you from the very beginning that there's going
to be disinformation that they're going to try and obfuscate.
They're going to try and confuse us. And one of
the best ways to do that is to dump false
information so that people look at it and say, all
of this is bunk. Just take a look at this
allegation here. So since this allegation's outlandish, they all must be.
And that's why I told you not to fall for
the side quest. Don't fall for all the slacious bullshit.
That's what they want. Stay on target, and the target
is the system that allowed this to occur. A pair
of emails from July two thousand and six captures the arrangement.
On July thirteenth, Epstein wrote to Brunell at his MC
squared address, instructing him to put a woman that were
discussing on your payroll, specifying a fifty thousand dollars annual salary.
Brunell asked whether Epstein wanted the woman to start scouting models.
Epstein replied the next day, starts salary as soon as possible.
Epstein added that he would be in Paris the following
week and could see her. Then. Well, well, well, what
do you know, I'm sure it was just about modeling, right,
Nothing to see here. Jeffrey Epstein and his buddy of
Jean Luke Brunel, they were just, you know, great patrons,
and they were really worried about people's lives, and they
wanted people to achieve greatness, so they decided to get involved.
When Epstein was jailed in Florida in two thousand and
eight after pleading guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution,
Brunel visited Epstein almost seventy times, according to gel logs.
But yeah, Jean lu Brunell nothing to do with this.
Why should we pursue Jean lu Brunell, no evidence. It's unreal.
The whole entire thing is so unreal that it makes
me just so agitated and mad, even after all these
years of knowing that the fix has been in. In fact,
the longer this goes on, the more agitated I get.
After his Florida arrest in two thousand and six, Epstein
shifted his focus to women in their late teens and
twenties from Europe and Russia, whom he could lure to
the US and abuse. Since they were dependent on him
for visas, housing, and finances. He also pressured these women
to share with them details about their interactions with other men. Well, well,
well another receipt, is it? That's exactly what he was doing.
And after he got oled in America, his handlers told him, look,
you gotta focus elsewhere. Now you can still get up
to what you want to get up to, but you
got to leave the high school age girls alone, at
least not get them from the high schools. So Epstein
flip the script and the same exact template that they
used sharing Iran contra to move drugs, to move guns,
to move money, they just started using to move girls
from Eastern Europe. And of course these are the girls
that I have dubbed the girls with no names. By
twenty twelve, Brunel was in frequent communication with Epstein. On
June seventh of that year, Joshua Fink, the son of
Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, email Brunell about an MC two invoice,
saying he had received a bill and wanted to clarify
a point or two about their agreement. Brunell told Fink
he would suspend the billing. Oh, isn't that nice? So
what did you purchase from MC squared, the son of Blackrock?
Did you buy models for a modeling shoot? Did you
have models for I don't know, a video? What sort
of business were you doing with MC squared? And why
were you doing it? Probably a good question. Yeah, the
invoice was related to a model whom Fink was dating
that had a work visa through the agency, A traffic
girl that was brought in. That's what that means in
my opinion. When Brunell forwarded the email chain to Epstein,
the reply was talk to me first, please. When the
woman forwarded the same email that day, Epstein replied, this
for a past, not future. Epstein was well aware of
the relationship. The woman had forwarded him several chat logs
with Fink, which captured the couple clashing over how serious
a relationship was and whether marriage was on the table.
Jeffrey Epstein, the matchmaker, huh, a real life, live action
version a fiddler on the roof? Isn't that nice? And
with your visa? I have no idea what it is
I can do beyond pay your agency to supplement your
income and theirs because you are not getting work as
a model. Fink wrote in reply to her complaints that
he wasn't doing enough to help her because she was
never brought there to be a model. She was brought
there to be you know. I hate to say it
served up to somebody and I guess that's somebody was
mister Fink. Fink told the journal that he met the
woman at a friend's dinner party and started a romantic
relationship that lasted roughly a year. I had no relationship
with Epstein or Brunel, he said. I am totally shocked
that she was forwarding electronic correspondence to Epstein. Oh, I'm
sure you're shocked, you dumb idiot. I had no relationship
with Brunell and Epstein except for getting girls from them.
What an absolute clown. He said that he was helping
the woman settle her debts with a modeling agency and
loaned her money to pay off Brunel. She wasn't working
or getting enough jobs, and so she had suggested at
one point, hey, could you help me settle these debts,
he said, And so that was the correspondence. It was
a personal relationship, and personal things happen. He added. Well, yeah,
there's no doubt that in personal relationships things go south.
But not every personal relationship has its genesis at the
MC square at office. Kind of an important part of
the story, you know. The woman described herself to the
journal as trapped in a web of abuse controlled by
Epstein and Brunel. She said that she had been a
successful model abroad with the top agency, but after signing
with MC square and getting a work visa through the agency,
her work dried up. She said Brunell charged fees without
securing castings and that Epstein abused her throughout. So you
can choose not to believe her if that's what you
want to do, and I'm sure there's going to be
people that take that approach, but not me. I believe her,
and that's because I just know too much about what
they were doing in Eastern Europe, and when you read
the depositions and you listen to the people tell the
stories who were there, I'm confident in saying that Jeffrey
Epstein and Jean Luke Brunell one hundred percent were trafficking
women between each other. And that's just the beginning, Okay.
That's what I think we can prove, and I think
that it is undeniable that Jeffrey Epstein and Jean lu
Brunell were trafficking women between the two of them and
trading them like people trade baseball cards. The woman said
that she had met Fink on her own independent of
Epstein and Brunel and saw the relationship, which she said
was consensual, as a possible escape. But Ebstein wanted the
relationship with Fink to end to keep her under his control.
The woman said. When Fink proposed meeting her Emparis to
resolve their issues and discuss marriage in late twenty twelve,
Epstein blocked it and the relationship ended, according to the
woman and messages she showed the journal, boy, this really
sets a bomb off in the camp of the people
who say that Epstein wasn't trafficking girls. Huh my prediction.
They'll move the goalposts. Oh well, he wasn't trafficking underage
girls until the story comes out to confirm that. Brad Edwards,
a lawyer who has represented more than two hundred Epstein victims,
including the woman, said Epstein's wealth in power allowed him
to infiltrate industries, perhaps more pervasively the modeling industry. He
found Jean Luke, a like minded predator with whom he
could conspire on a daily basis to recruit and control
the lives of countless young women, including Jane Doe. Brunell
and Epstein were so close in twenty twelve that a
version of Epstein's trust from that year listed Brunel as
a beneficiary for as much as five million, according to
a copy made public in the recent Justice Department files.
Around that time, Brunel was fretting over a deposition of
Maritza Vasquez, who I've talked about plenty of times and
shared the whole deposition with you folks as well. MC
two's former financial controller and bookkeeper. Vasquez had given a
sworn statement in twenty ten in a civil lawsuit filed
by one of Epstein's victims. Vasquez described how models were
placed in Epstein controlled departments and how visas were arranged
for underage girls, and that apartment building was the one
over on East sixty six. That's where they stabed all
these girls from all these countries. Earlier, Brunell had accused
Vasquez of embezzling company funds from two thousand and four
to two thousand and six. She pleaded guilty to a
criminal charge in two thousand and seven and agreed to
pay restitution of ninety eight thousand dollars. Vasquez couldn't be
reached for comment. On October fourth, twenty twelve, Brunell messaged Epstein,
her lawyer, said she will take the fifth on everything.
What to do, he wrote. Epstein's reply, Ask every question
you can think of? Did she have sex with the girls?
Make her sit and take the fifth to every question
for hours? No big Gil right, Just get behind the
scenes and let's come up with a plan. Let's obstruct
another crime. By the way. Brunell and Epstein also relied
on a common recruiter. Daniel said two fine girls and
women in other countries the file show. Siodd, a European
modeling scout, exchanged dozens of emails with Brunel and Epstein.
In one exchange from July twenty fourteen, Sayad informed Epstein
that he had two girls from Sweden, a Slovakian, two French,
and redacted the Russian with whom you spoke. Epstein said
that he would reimburse Sayid for his expenses and said,
please send me the details of the girls' names, etc.
Si I compared his recruiting efforts to fishing. In this busyness,
I feel like fishermen. Sometimes I cash quick, sometimes no fish.
He ended the message with the taally of his expenses
for the trip twenty seven hundred euros. Siodd's attorney in
France didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, and
a video posted on x and recently broadcast on French TV,
Siod said he worked professionally to introduce models to Epstein.
With time we have learned that he committed atrocities. He said,
oh yeah, he had no idea. Huh, no idea? What
you were up to? Another guy who had no clue.
In December twenty fourteen, Virginia Roberts, one of Epstein's most
prominent victims, filed a motion to join a lawsuit that
was challenging Epstein's non prosecution agreement related to his earlier
arrest in Florida. In one of the exhibits, she alleged
that Brunell traffic girls as the youngest twelve to his friends,
including Epstein. The allegations placed Brunel in public crosshairs alongside Epstein.
As a result, the relationship between Brunel and Epstein appeared
to fray. In January twenty fifteen, Brunel and EMC Squared
sued Epstein in a Florida court, claiming that the agency
had gone from being worth millions to almost worthless because
of the notoriety surrounding Epstein's crimes. The lawsuit alleged Brunell
had lost potentially ten million dollars in profits, that photographers
and scouts had cut ties with EMC Squared, and that
Brunel could no longer recruit new models because families refused
to entrust her daughters to a man publicly linked to Epstein. Meanwhile,
Brunel was just as much of a monster, and I
suspect that this lawsuit was just another cover, just like
the lawsuit with Les Wesner. I feel the same way here,
kind of an escape patch right. The following month, to tone,
Brunell's lawyer called Edwards, the victim's attorney, saying he was
having trouble serving Epstein with the lawsuit, and raised the
possibility of that Brunell possessed photographic evidence against Epstein. Well,
we know Brunell had the goods, and the more I
look at it, the more I think about it, the
less convinced I am that Brunell killed himself. Edwards, unsure
whether this represented a genuine break between the two men
or employed by Epstein, told the journal he alerted his
law partner Stan Pottinger. Pottinger died in twenty twenty four.
The rift between Epstein and Brunell was temporary, and that's
why I think it was a ruse. The recently released
Justice Department file show. By April twenty fifteen, Brunell suggested
a friend to mediate the dispute, and later that month,
Epstein asked to meet Brunel. I have some ideas that
I think you will like, Epstein wrote on April fourteenth.
Still over the following year, Pottinger, along with Boys and Edwards,
corresponded with federal prosecutors in New York and to Tone
to get Brunell to cooperate. By twenty sixteen, Brunell had
agreed to turn himself in and was naming names. Wow,
just wow, and it just died on the vine. They
had everything they needed right here and they refused to
do it. But sure, you're crazy for thinking the fix
was in The prosecutor Notes from February twenty ninth, twenty sixteen,
revealed that the victims lawyers briefed the prosecut to Tone
says his client has photographic evidence. According to the notes,
Brunell doesn't want to implicate himself. On May third, Pottinger
wrote in an email to a prosecutor. Yesterday, I spoke
to Daniel Sayed, whom Jean Luke Brunell describes as a
scout or recruiter of girls and or women for Jeffrey Epstein.
So he's another co conspirator, right, so he needs to
be investigated and indicted if the evidence is there. To
Tone said that Epstein eventually called him to discuss Brunell's
suit and tried to build a rapport, bonding over their
shared Brooklyn roots. He's a real charmer, to Tone recalled.
He said that Brunell eventually settled the suit with Epstein
and said the terms were confidential. After the effort to
get Brunell to testify failed, Epstein continued luring victims. When
Epstein was found dead in a jail cell in twenty nineteen,
Brunell went into hiding. French authorities launched an investigation shortly
after searching his home and offices. To see here though
no human trafficking. Everything's just a big made up lie.
It's a big moral panic. In December of twenty twenty,
French police intercepted Brunel at a Paris air report as
he attempted to board a flight to Senegal, he was
taken into custody in charge with sex crimes. In February
of twenty twenty two, he was found hanged in his
prison cell. That sounds familiar. Huh. We've heard that story before,
haven't we. And look, I'm not buying it. I don't
buy that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, and at this point
I don't buy that Jean Luke Brunel killed himself either.
But like usual, we'll continue to swim through that muck
searching for some clarity. All the information that goes with
this episode can be found in the description box