Epstein’s reach: France probe heating up
French National Police, who have already interviewed three alleged victims, appealed Wednesday for more victims and witnesses to come forward to help with their probe of alleged sexual exploitation of women and girls by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Police made the appeal in a tweet regarding “affaire Epstein” that included a phone number and email address for alleged victims and witnesses.
It said police specialists have been mobilized for an investigation that opened Aug. 23 into alleged incidents of the rape of minors and other possible charges linked to the Epstein case.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said three alleged victims have already been interviewed by investigators in August and as recently as Monday.
The 66-year-old Epstein apparently killed himself in August while in jail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. He was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges that carried a prison sentence of up to 45 years. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The financier was arrested in July at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after his private jet landed there from Paris.
Epstein, who counted Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew of Britain among his prominent, powerful friends, maintained an apartment at a luxury Paris address near the Arc de Triomphe.
A France-based advocacy group, Innocence in Danger, that has also been gathering testimony, said it was delighted by the appeal from police, calling it proof “that the affair is being taken seriously.”
“It’s necessary and it can perhaps allow people who have things to say, victims and witness, to understand that France is interested,” Homayra Sellier, the group’s president, told the Associated Press.
She said she hopes it will also encourage witnesses who wrote anonymously to the group to come forward. About 10 people have contacted the group in relation to the Epstein case, and testimonies that weren’t anonymous have been forwarded to French prosecutors, she said.
French investigators are potentially interested in Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and frequent Epstein companion who occasionally flew on his plane. Brunel even visited Epstein in jail in Florida, where he served 13 months as part of a deal for a 2008 guilty plea on sex charges, according to records.
Virginia Giuffre, one of the women who accused Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager, has alleged that she also had sex with Brunel, along with a long list of other prominent men, including Prince Andrew. All of those men have denied her allegations.