PARIS: French police are launching a fresh appeal for witnesses and victims to come forward to aid their probe of Jeffrey Epstein and allegations that one of the financier’s associates drugged and raped young models.
Police hope the new appeal issued Friday will have a broader reach than a similar call for witnesses they issued on Facebook and Twitter on Sept. 11.
Women who say they were raped and sexually assaulted by one of Epstein’s associates, French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, had this week told AP that they were disappointed with the limited scope of police efforts to track down witnesses.
Brunel has denied wrongdoing and has said via his lawyer he is willing to talk to investigators.
Police commissioner Philippe Guichard, whose office is leading the French probe, acknowledged in an AP interview Friday that their previous appeal for witnesses, worded only in French, had limited success. The new appeal was also being issued in English, he said.
“The witnesses and the victims tell us that they had trouble identifying us and finding the number and reaching us to give evidence,” he said.
He also said the evidence search had been hampered by a reluctance to talk in the “closed world” of modelling.
“We imagine that potential victims don’t want to speak, to report crimes, because they must feel that, ‘If I say something, will I keep my job?’” he said.
The French probe was launched in August after Epstein took his life while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
