Transcription
On July 22nd, 2009, Jeffrey Epstein sent
an identical email to a handful of
friends. Said, "Home and free."
This was the day that Epstein was
released from jail, although the jail
time he served back in 2008 was largely
done on work release, which means he got
to live out of his Palm Beach mansion.
Regardless, July 22nd, 2009 is the day
that he was officially freed from that
sentence
and could resume life as it was, so to
speak. Now, among the people that he
sent this email to were Glenn Maxwell,
Peggy Seagull, a powerful or once
powerful Hollywood PR agent, Andrew
Farcus, a New York real estate magnate,
and Faith Kates, the founder and CEO of
Next Model Management. Now, Faith in
particular is an interesting person to
email in this moment in time. An
interesting person to be in contact with
Epstein in this moment in time. She was
a model manager and an agent who
represented young girls and women in the
modeling industry.
She wrote back to Epste, "I'm so happy
for you. Call me today." Now, if anyone
should be careful, should be circumspect
about coordinating with a man who just
got released from jail, even if it was
his own mansion, for sleeping with a
17-year-old.
It would be a woman whose job is to care
for the livelihoods and in some ways the
lives more broadly of teenage girls. And
yet, Faith was very clearly not
concerned, as we will see a number of
times, for a number of reasons. And the
minimal statements she has given to the
press about the situation honestly make
her situation worse in my opinion. Now,
I have complicated feelings about Faith
Kates, and we will get into some of
that, but the system in which she
operated is undoubtedly unlike any of
the ones I have covered up to this
point.
The public, the media is understandably
very fixated on politicians who went to
the island, celebrities, often political
celebrities who went to the island. And
I understand why. But all of those
people were part of a sideh show.
Epstein was trafficking women or using
women to gain leverage over those
individuals. But the actual trafficking
itself
was through the modeling industry. The
modeling industry was ground zero. Let
me put it this way. If all of the famous
names that you've heard about, Bill
Gates, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, you
name them, if all of them disappeared or
never existed, Epstein still could have
run a an international sex trafficking
run. In fact, he almost certainly would
have. But if you take away the people
and the industry that I talk about
today,
there is no international sex
trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.
So, let's go through it. The most
important person to this story is not
actually Faith Kates. It is one of her
original backing partners when she
started Next Model Management Corp. A
man named Jeanluke Brunell. Here's a
clip from the promotional video put out
by the modeling agency that Jean Luke
Brunell started with financing from
Jeffrey Epstein.
>> I was discovered in Vancouver. Actually,
it was kind of funny story. Um, I was
12.
funny yet is a 12-year-old who was
scouted to be a model. And we'll
discover that this is not unusual,
right? This is not an aberration. This
is how this industry runs and it is
baked into its founding story as an
industry. Now, Jean Luke Brunell, who
founded MC Squared Management, the
agency through which we get that
promotional clip, he rose to prominence
in the late 1970s uh as the head of
Karen Models Management. Now, he has
claimed he discovered the likes of
supermodels like Christy Turlington. She
was in fact represented by Karen in
Paris in the 1970s, but he also became
notorious for other reasons. Here's a
clip from a 1988
60 Minutes investigation led by Diane
Sawyer.
>> His name is Jeanluke Brunell.
>> His friends say, "Oh, Jean Luke, I'd
like to have, you know, I'd like to meet
some girls or we're having a party
tonight. Can you bring some girls?" And
what happens if you say no? You don't
work.
That was in 1988. And that's the tame
stuff. Here's what also was reported by
60 Minutes at the same time.
>> This girl told us a few years ago she
went to Jeanluke's house with a few of
his friends. She said a powerful
hallucinogenic drug was slipped into her
drink and that Jeanluke kept urging her
to go in and take a bath. She said she
managed to get out of the house but
stayed disoriented for 24 hours. But
this exmodel says several years ago she
went to Jean Luke's house and didn't get
away.
>> 1988
60 Minutes uncovered dozens of women who
reported abuse
harassment by Jean Lupernell in 1988.
Now Jean Lernell was arrested. He was
arrested for and trafficking and abuse
in 2020 42 years later. And he did a lot
in those 42 years. For example, the year
after the 60 Minutes piece ran in just
1989, he became the founding partner
backer of Next Model Management started
by Faith Kates. He and his brother got a
25% stake in Next Model Management, a
partnership which ultimately blew up in
1996 over business reasons, not because
Faith Kates started to have any issues
with the fact that this man was almost
certainly abusing the product, for lack
of a better term. But most importantly
for our story here today, Jean Luke was
quite literally Jeffrey Epstein's
partner in crime. The two were
reportedly introduced to each other in
the late 1980s, early 1990s by Galain
Maxwell. They forged a close friendship
in which they would travel around the
world partying with other illustrious
folks like Fabitio Lombardo, close
personal friend and accomplice to Harvey
Weinstein. Jeanluke reportedly visited
Epstein 70 times during the year in
which he was in prison. He flew on his
plane dozens, 20 plus times, went to the
island, and the two emailed constantly.
In fact, this is one of the rare
relationships in Epste's life that
really does span the late 80s all the
way up until he was arrested in 2019.
Many of the emails are just flip videos,
videos of women and girls, of course,
all part of their modeling business. And
then in 2003, the two became business
partners when Epstein became the
guarantor for an almost million-dollar
line of credit through JP Morgan Chase,
which was offered up to MC Squared Model
Management. And this is where things get
interesting because at some point JP
Morgan Chase gets a little skittish
about the fact that they're extending
lines of credit guaranteed by Epstein to
a modeling agency when Epstein himself
has a plea deal for a minor. internal
communications within the bank ha have
somebody writing, "Are we comfortable
taking on additional credit exposure
just ahead of his pending plea
arrangement
and eventually JP Morgan would pull
continuing the line of credit offered to
MC Squared on the basis that they
clearly didn't feel entirely comfortable
with what was going on." Now, there's a
lot to be said about how JP Morgan Chase
and a number of banks should have done a
lot more, should have flagged
transactions to and from Epstein much
sooner than they did. But nevertheless,
they I guess did the right thing
ultimately here. And in 2009, around the
era of all of this, Epstein emails Jean
Lu Brunell and says, "We have Andrew on
the hook. When are you coming?" Jean
Luell says, "Tonight or tomorrow
morning." Epste says, "You should tell
me the structure of MC squared
currently. corporation LLC. Two things.
He can stand in for me on the letter of
credit. No cash needed. Blah blah blah.
So, what they're talking about here is a
Canadian businessman, a man named Andrew
Nikau Niku, who they have begun
conversations with to potentially buy MC
Squared Model Management. Now, this deal
doesn't end up going through. Andrew
seems skeptical as to the real value of
MC Squ and for good reason, as it would
turn out. But I raised this because it
becomes an introductory way to get at a
theme that I think it is very important
to discuss and an important question to
be asked like
genuinely
why do straight men
older straight men
get involved in the modeling scouting or
modeling management business
because I got to tell you in doing
the research for all of this, it becomes
very hard not to be so cynical as to say
it it's all nefarious like like like
burn the entire industry to the ground.
It's all nefarious. And I'm a rational
person who believes in nuance. So I'm
not going to actually say that. But the
impulse arises many times as you start
to dig into what goes on in this entire
[ __ ] industry. Because an important
thing to understand is that the modeling
management business is not a good one
from an economic business perspective.
It's not particularly profitable. You
have your big agencies, your Ford, your
Elite, your IMG. They bring in millions
of dollars in revenue a year and are I
understand them to be fairly profitable.
But your smaller, your mid-tier boutique
agencies, you are talking about razor
thin profit margins. And MC Squared in
particular, the business that this guy
Andrew Niku is looking to buy, the
business that is essentially propped up
by Epstein's own line of credit, that's
a dog [ __ ] business from an economics
perspective. And we know this because
remarkably the bookkeeper or one of the
bookkeepers for MC Squared spoke to the
FBI in 2010 and revealed a lot of this.
What was Jeffrey Epstein getting out of
MC Squared? The FBI asked to the
bookkeeper for MCQ. The only thing that
I can think he was getting was the
girls. Nothing else because he has all
the money. FBI and the company wasn't
making money anyway. No. And you know
the company wasn't making money. It
wasn't at all at all. So the only thing
that he was I believe he wanted to get
involved was because of the girls.
That's it. She's not a native English
speaker. But the point is MC Squared was
a very bad business. But in general, the
modeling management modeling agency
business is not a very lucrative one.
And in many cases, even the money that
does get made gets made at the expense
of the girls and the models themselves.
This is a well doumented phenomenon. The
girls are charged fees for all sorts of
things by their agencies that they are
expected to pay their agency back for.
That's not always clear to them and
which takes from their already pretty
meager earnings. Next, model management
along with many, many others have been
the subject of lawsuits by models and
former models alleging predatory fee
behavior. I'm not saying Next is an
outlier in that because I don't think
they are at all. They are simply the
industry standard because this is how
the industry runs. And speaking of how
the industry runs, the primary recruiter
that Epstein seemed to work with
alongside Jean Lu Brunell was a man
named Daniel Say. He has of course been
accused of by a Swedish woman who says
she didn't even know until all of the
Epstein story started to come out that
that was the man who had her because he
had a fake passport at the time and gave
her a fake name. Daniel Sed again would
take photos, would take videos, would
send them back to Epstein. He would
write things like, "I just found an
amazing one. She is 20 years old but
looks younger from Latvia, 5'8." He goes
on to say, "Let me know if you think it
will be good to take her to next."
That's in 2009. There's another one like
that in 2014. I'm sure there's a number.
I didn't read every single email between
these two because it's redundant. We
know what they're doing. At another
point, he says, "This girl is is free.
It might be the right time to send her
to New York with Next or MC Squared."
So, this brings us back to Next and
Faith Kates. Faith Kates claimed she
never did work with Epstein. Through her
attorney, Kates said she denied any
business or financial relationship with
Epstein. Her attorney said she had seen
him once or twice a year over the last
decade. First of all, okay. Okay. But
here's the irony. Saying that she did
not have a business relationship with
Epstein, in my opinion, does not help
her case. Let's talk about why. First of
all, you have Epste very clearly
positioning himself as a conduit to next
two young girls that he was recruiting.
Now, we know that Epstein was a liar. We
know that he used the Victoria's Secret
name in the 90s, for example, pretending
he was a scout for Victoria's Secret in
order to get access to girls. So, the
fact that he leverages the next name in
order to scout, manipulate, abuse women
and girls does not mean that Next knew
he was doing that. Except that
Kates and Epstein exchange emails
talking about specific models and girls.
In fact, unbelievably, there is an email
from May 2009. So, Epstein is currently
serving prison time, jail time, for
sleeping with, aka a 17-year-old. And
again, the crimes were actually far more
in worse than that. But that is what the
public narrative was around it. And he
gets an email forward, Polaroids from
Faith. Now, we can't see the images, so
I can't tell you with 100% certainty,
but I would bet a lot of money that that
is Faith Kates forwarding to Epstein
images of models, images of models to a
man who is serving time
for sleeping with a 17-year-old raping.
Okay, which which brings us to the other
justification Kate has given through her
attorney for her continued relationship
with Epstein. Her attorney said, "Mr.
Epstein informed Ms. Kates and everyone
else he knew that the reason he served a
year in prison was because he was caught
with a prostitute who unbeknownsted to
him was underage and that even though he
was innocent, he accepted a plea deal
and agreed to serve a year in jail with
work release solely to avoid the risk
that he could be sentenced to 25 years
in prison if he went to trial and fought
the charges. Then he also said given the
relatively light sentence Mr. Epste
received and the fact that my client
never personally observed any
inappropriate conduct by Mr. Epste. She
had no reason to disbelieve him. Because
she didn't personally see Epstein, a
14year-old.
She thought, "Sure, what's the harm?
What's the harm in emailing with this
single 50, sevenyear-old man, 5year-old
man?
Images of 17, 18 year old girls because
he slept with a prostitute who he didn't
know was 17 or 16 or whatever. He
thought she was 18.
thought she was 19. Do you feel better?
And look, if you've watched anything
else I've said on this show, you know,
and in fact, some of you feel critical
of the fact that I do not blame every
person who continued to interact with
Epstein after his 2008 plea deal,
especially those who started interacting
in like 2013, 2014 when he had already
been reintroduced to society in many
ways and and it had all been really
swept under the rug. I get it. If you're
if you have an advisory relationship, a
friendship, you're an adult, you don't
totally understand what happened. Okay.
Yeah. I I really I I there are people I
give grace for that.
This one's a hard pill for me to
swallow. You don't find it just
inherently odd or suspicious that this
perpetual
bachelor who is admitting to you he
sleeps with youngl looking prostitutes
wants to be in the modeling industry as
like a scout.
That's the proof, Faith. That's the
proof. That is weird. And I know people
are going to say this is proof that she
was in on the trafficking. I think what
it's proof of is how normal it is in
this industry to be surrounded by or
work with straight men who, you know,
want to be sleeping with the girls
they're recruiting. Epstein was smart.
Jean Lu Brunelli even was smart. It was
reported that Jean Lu Brunell, even as
he raped his way through Paris in the
80s, wouldn't drug or or sleep with Eene
Ford's models because Eileen Ford was
his great connection to the American
modeling market. He knew how to target
the vulnerable ones. And Epste is the
same way. Epstein clearly wasn't going
to prey upon a girl so directly
connected to Faith Kates that it it
could risk getting back to her. But we
know he did use his connection with Next
as part of his criminality. So look,
what I've been doing is ranking on a
scale from 1 to 10 every person in the
Epstein files, deciding how investigable
are they, how much would I like them
prioritized
if I were running the investigation into
what went on here. And the truth is,
everyone here is a 10 in my opinion, but
for different reasons. Jean Luke
Brunell, who was already arrested for
this and died by hanging by suicide in a
Paris prison. He's a 10 out of 10
because he was just every bit the
trafficking monster that Epstein was,
right? I mean, it's not even that's he's
a different league. Daniel Sad, a 10 out
of 10, who I very much believe has many
women and girls himself as a scout.
And then there's Faith Gates, who is a
10 out of 10 in my opinion. Not because
she was herself participating in
trafficking, but because I think she is
somebody who perhaps in order to make it
as an executive in the fashion world
starting in the late ' 80s, which is
what she did when she set up her own
agency,
was willing to play into a game in which
a lot of predators were enabled. At
best, she was willfully blind to the
obvious red flags that would have made
many other people go, "Oh, I'm not going
to continue to interact with Epstein."
And whether she was fully aware of it or
not, Jeffrey Epsteed on her name and the
name of Next Bottle Management in order
to further a a literal international
trafficking operation. And the best she
can say about it is, "My gosh, I had no
idea because he told me that uh he
didn't mean to sleep with a 17-year-old.
He thought she was like 19.
[ __ ]