A French investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex network has been criticized for its slow progress by women who say an associate of the disgraced financier raped and sexually assaulted them in France, claims that have raised questions over whether their allegations are again being “swept under the rug.”
The women’s concerns stem from investigators’ apparent limited efforts in tracking down other witnesses against Jean-Luc Brunel, a mysterious French modeling agent who allegedly procured women, some of them minors, for sex with Epstein and others.
They said police have only issued one public appeal urging witnesses to come forward. The message, posted on Sept. 11 to Twitter and Facebook and only in French, might not have reached people who don’t belong to those social networks or follow the police feeds, according to the women.
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“Investigations are carried out every day in the framework of this inquiry,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement to The AP.
Courtney Powell Soerensen, another former model who alleges that Brunel tried to pressure her into sex and assaulted her in 1988 when she was starting her career in Paris as a 19-year-old, called the investigation efforts thus far “absolutely absurd.”
“They need to put the calls out to Eastern Europe and South America, disadvantaged places, because that’s where they were pulling the girls,” she told The AP, adding that such claims were ignored then and are again being “swept under the rug.” – READ MORE