Epstein Data Wiki

Elite Model Management

Properties2
tagsentity, modeling-industry, france, epstein-correspondence
aliasesElite Models

16 min read

TypeModelling agency. On the company’s own account it was founded in Paris in 1972 by John Casablancas, with Elite New York following in 19771
Scouting competitionElite Model Look, created in 1983 and originally called The Look of the Year, on the company’s own account1
Corporate parent of EMM Amsterdam B.V.Elite World S.A., of Luxembourg, named as a party to a settlement agreement with Elite Model Management Amsterdam B.V. and two other parties dated by hand 15/12/112
In Epstein’s e-mailA correspondent wrote to Jeffrey Epstein from an Elite Model Look competition in October 2011, and correspondents told him in 2011 and 2012 that they were attending. He asked what they had found and pressed them for results345678
Alleged dealings with Brunel’s agencyIn a 2015 pleading Jean-Luc Brunel alleged that Elite Paris refused to send models to his agency and ended an agreement with it for fear of being linked to Epstein. The allegation is his9

Elite Model Management is a modelling agency founded in Paris in 1972, whose international scouting competition, Elite Model Look, has run since 1983.1 It appears in the released Epstein files in at least eight distinct ways. A correspondent wrote to Jeffrey Epstein from an Elite Model Look competition in France in 2011 and he asked what had been found; another correspondent’s e-mail signature gave the sender’s employer as Elite Retail in Paris; a man whom two correspondents described as a former owner or chief executive of Elite was put to Epstein in 2011 and again in 2014 as a prospective partner in buying modelling agencies; and Jean-Luc Brunel pleaded in a 2015 civil complaint that Elite Paris had severed an agreement with his own agency for fear of being linked to Epstein. The release also carries a settlement agreement naming two Elite companies as parties, a Daily Mail article filed as a court exhibit describing women linked to Elite and MC2, a promotional management biography reciting a 2004 retainer with Elite’s Swiss parent, and 2016 correspondence proposing the Elite Model Look format as a template for a Brazilian contest.4610111292131415 No document read for this page records Elite Model Management, Elite World S.A. or any officer of either corresponding with Epstein, and no statement by the company about him is recorded here.

Background

Elite’s own website states that Casablancas “founded Elite in Paris” in 1972, that “Elite New York was founded in 1977 by John Casablancas,” and that “In 1983, Casablancas created the Elite Model Look contest, (originally known as The Look Of the Year), a unique and powerful scouting vehicle where thousands of contestants from sixty countries worldwide participated each year.”1 The competition terms published on the Elite Model Look website in January 2026 state that it “is open to people aged 14 years and over at the time of applying.”16 This is the competition’s current entry rule; nothing in the released files, which concern events in 2011, bears on it.

A management-team biography held in the released files, written to promote an unrelated sportswear venture, names its subject as Byron Hero and states that he “was retained in January, 2004 by Elite Model Management, S.A., the Swiss parent company of the Elite network of modeling management firms, to assist in the restructuring of its North American business which was involved in several debilitating lawsuits,” and that he “served as legal counsel, crisis manager, and acting CEO of the business” through a bankruptcy reorganisation concluded in September 2004.14 The document is a promotional management-team biography, and no corroborating record of the reorganisation was read for this page.

Epstein’s correspondents and Elite, 2011 and 2012

On 18 May 2011 Epstein replied to a message whose sender’s name and address are blacked out and whose signature block carried the line “ELITE RETAIL” above Elite’s web address: “I really apprecaite these,, thanks,,, send me your bank details.”17 The message he was answering is not reproduced in the document beyond that signature, so what he was thanking the sender for cannot be established from it, and nothing read for this page records a payment.

On 24 June 2011 a correspondent whose signature block is blacked out apart from Elite’s web address wrote to him: “Jeffrey, please tell me can i look an assistant for you like the other month and will have salary for this as we agreed? some cute girls in town.”18 A message of 14 March 2012 from a correspondent whose name is likewise redacted carries a signature block naming the sender’s employer as Elite Retail in Paris, with its telephone, mobile and e-mail lines blacked out; nothing else on that page is cited here.10

On 26 October 2011 a correspondent told Epstein “Not sure either tmrw night or fri morn..if friday I will have to go to the Elite model look competition thursday night.” Epstein replied within two minutes: “find something for your old friend.”3

The following afternoon a correspondent whose name is redacted wrote to him, “i am on Elite Model look France now ;))” and “so many cute girls.”4 Thirty-four minutes later Epstein answered with a single word, “Produce.”5 On 28 October he wrote again, “What did you find?”, and the correspondent replied: “it was 2 interesting girls but when i asked age, mm… 17yo” and “all the girls from contest were the way too young this year.” Epstein’s answer was “sunday.”6 The documents name nobody the correspondent describes.

On 21 December 2011 a correspondent wrote to Epstein of having had “a last meeting with Elite agency yesterday with Elite Model Look president,” and added: “i think from February i move in Elite to take care of scouting and new faces at Elite Europe.”19 The message records an expectation, not an appointment, and nothing read for this page records whether the post was taken up.

On 21 October 2012 Epstein wrote to a correspondent, “you have not produced one not one. it is crazy, i have tried to be helpful as much as i can.” The reply came the same day: “Tomorrow evening i am going to Elite Model Look, will check there.”7 The next morning a correspondent whose name is likewise redacted wrote under the subject line “Elite Model Look”: “Jeffrey, i just ordered an invitation for you for tonight for Elite Model Look. Do you want to go with me? It will be fun !!!” Epstein answered, “i am in new york,” and the correspondent wrote back that “Tonight Elite Look will be very good,” offered to “do casting for you” on a forthcoming trip, and asked “Can i do it using name your model agency in ny?”8 No answer of his to that question was read for this page.

On 12 October 2017 a correspondent sent Epstein a link to a model’s profile page on Elite’s website together with an account of having met her.20 The remainder of that message describes two individuals whose names the document blacks out, and it is not reproduced here.

Brunel, MC2 and Elite Paris

In an amended verified complaint against Epstein filed in Florida in January 2015, Jean-Luc Brunel pleaded that in 2006 he and his agency “received a letter of credit from Epstein at 5% interest” and “then made an investment totaling one-million dollars with Elite Paris, to start a company”; that he “started the company, ‘E Management’, to work with Elite Models in Paris,” and “had to close it almost immediately, because Elite didn’t send any models to Plaintiff MC2 for fear of being linked to Epstein”; and that “Elite Paris severed the agreement due entirely to these false links,” costing him his investment.9 The pleading is Brunel’s own allegation in his own suit, framed throughout as a claim that links between him and Epstein were false. ABC News reported that Brunel was found dead in a Paris prison cell on 19 February 2022, so no further account from him is possible.21 No response by Elite to the pleading was read for this page.

A former Elite executive named to Epstein, 2011 and 2014

On 18 June 2011 a correspondent wrote to Epstein under the subject “Yo”: “I just had a phone call from B Hennet ex owner of Elite. He wants to start a new group of agencies and said that MC2 was one of his choice. I have to meet him in July.”11 The next day Epstein wrote to Jean Luc Brunel, whose name is printed in the message’s To field: “does hennet want a real agency , or just for his son to continue to play? I would like you to form a larger operation, i think it would be good for you.” A reply to Epstein eight minutes later, from a sender whose name is redacted, read: “I don’t know. I will meet him in July. He told me that he wanted to build a group of agencies.”22

In February 2014 a different correspondent, whose name and contact details are blacked out throughout, put a proposal to Epstein under the subject line “Model Agency for you”: to buy three agencies in Paris, New York and Los Angeles and merge them, financing 100% of share capital at about eleven million euros, though the correspondent advised buying a 51% controlling stake instead to reduce the initial investment, and to “take on board Bernard Hennet, ex.CEO of Elite who has sold 3 years ago all his shares in Elite,” whose non-competition clause was said to be ending that March.12 On 12 February the correspondent asked whether Epstein was “ready to invest about 6m euros” for “the model agency for you and Bernard Hennet”; Epstein replied, “Need more detAils.”23 On 24 February the same correspondent set out costed alternatives running from a stated minimum of five million euros to eleven and a half million, describing the plan as “to constitute a team with Bernard Hennet, ex-owner of Elite World and buy 2 existing model agencies already well identified.” The same message told Epstein: “It is very important for Bernard to team with the right partner, extremely clean name. So your name should never appear in the venture and only my name should appear.” Later on the same page a parenthesis reads: “(Licence for a model agency is starting from 16 years old, I know you will love that!)”24

Every statement about Hennet in these messages is the correspondents’ account of him. Nothing read for this page records him writing to Epstein, meeting him, or knowing that his name was being used in this way, and no response from him is recorded here. Nothing read for this page records that any agency was bought.

The Elite Model Look format as a template, 2016

In September and October 2016 Ramsey Elkholy, named as the sender of his own messages, wrote to Epstein about buying into Brazilian modelling agencies and about a national modelling contest there. On 11 September he described “a competition/modeling contest they do every year in Brazil, like an Elite model search kind of thing,” which “would involve paying the organizer and then he would find sponsors and they would scour the country in search of prospective models,” and asked “Would you be interested in that? This way you would be getting younger girls, and less jaded by the modeling industry.”15 On 2 October he reported that the organisers needed “about 500k USD to do it right, basically the same way Elite did it when it was called the Elite Model Look contest,” and that “It’s basically the same contest as the Elite Model Look but they need to change the name because they don’t own Elite anymore.”25 Epstein replied on 2 October, “you can sign the nda and get ford numbers. i am around on wed if you have time in new york,” and on 26 September, to a message reporting work on “the national contest I just sent (former Elite Model Look Brazil),” he replied “great.”2526 No statement by Elkholy about this correspondence is recorded here, and nothing read for this page records that the contest was funded.

Elite in the released corporate and press records

A settlement agreement among the released files, whose parties are Elite World S.A. of Luxembourg, Elite Model Management Amsterdam B.V., ModelMasters The Agency B.V. and an individual named in it, recites failed negotiations for Elite to acquire ModelMasters’ assets and provides for Elite to pay ModelMasters 175,000 euros in full settlement. Its signature page carries handwritten dates of 15/12/11 beside the Elite World and Elite Model Management Amsterdam blocks, with the signature lines obscured; the date line for ModelMasters is blank. The agreement does not mention Epstein.2

An article published by the Daily Mail on 18 January 2016 and filed in 2023 as an exhibit in a case in the Southern District of New York reported that a group of women photographed entering and leaving Epstein’s Manhattan house at the weekend “mostly work as models,” and said of one of them that she “is represented by MC2 Model Management in New York and Elite Model Management in Milan.” The copy in the release blacks out the women’s names and the photographs. The article recorded that “None of the women were available for comment when The Daily Mail Online reached out to them on Monday to enquire about their relationship with Epstein.”13

Statements

No statement by Elite Model Management, Elite World S.A. or any officer of either about Jeffrey Epstein is recorded on this page. A search of the released files for “Elite Model”, “Elite Model Look”, “Elite Model Management”, “Elite World”, “Elite Retail”, “elitemodel”, “elitemodelworld”, “Casablancas”, “Kittler” and “Hennet” returned the documents described above, correspondence in which the agency’s competitions, its web address or a former executive are mentioned by Epstein’s correspondents, a settlement agreement to which two Elite companies are parties, a promotional biography, press items, and matches on unrelated subjects. It returned no correspondence written in the company’s name or by an officer of it.

Jean-Luc Brunel; Victoria’s Secret and L Brands.

Footnotes

  1. Elite Model Management, “About,” company website, read September 5, 2026. https://www.elitemodels.com/about ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Settlement agreement between Elite World S.A., Elite Model Management Amsterdam B.V., ModelMasters The Agency B.V. and a named individual, signature page dated by hand 15/12/11. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02697982 pp.1–3. The individual’s address on p.1, banking details on p.2 and the names listed on p.4 are not reproduced. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to a correspondent whose name is redacted, October 26, 2011, quoting the message it answers of the same day. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01853299 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  4. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name is redacted, October 27, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01986712 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to a correspondent whose name is redacted, October 27, 2011, quoting the message it answers. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00922621 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  6. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to a correspondent whose name is redacted, October 28, 2011, carrying his question of earlier that day and the correspondent’s reply. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01848246 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name and signature block are redacted, October 21, 2012, quoting Epstein’s message of the same day. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02002069 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  8. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name and signature blocks are redacted, October 22, 2012, subject “Re: Elite Model Look,” carrying the invitation sent that morning and Epstein’s reply. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02009253 p.1. Personal and family material in the same message is not reproduced. ↩ ↩2

  9. Jean-Luc Brunel and MC2 Model & Talent Miami, LLC v. Jeffrey Epstein, Tyler McDonald, and Tyler McDonald d/b/a Yi.Org, Civil Action No. 14-21348 CA 01, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Dade County, Fla., Amended Verified Complaint e-filed Jan. 26, 2015, paras. 19 to 21. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00599855 p.9. Two names on the same page are redacted and nothing else on it is cited here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Email to Jeffrey Epstein, March 14, 2012, whose signature block gives the sender’s employer as Elite Retail, Paris, with the sender’s name, telephone, mobile and e-mail redacted. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00931699 p.1. Nothing in the body of that message is reproduced here. ↩ ↩2

  11. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name is redacted, June 18, 2011, subject “Yo.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00719249 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  12. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name, signature block, telephone and fax are redacted, February 5, 2014, subject “Model Agency for you.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00633427 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  13. Joel Christie and a co-author whose surname the produced copy redacts, “EXCLUSIVE: The busy life of Jeffrey Epstein: Group of gorgeous Manhattan ‘it’ girls in and out of the billionaire sex offender’s mansion before Clinton pal flies off in private jet with comely brunette,” Daily Mail, published 16:40 EDT, January 18, 2016; filed as Exhibit 21, Document 270-21, in Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR (S.D.N.Y.), August 7, 2023. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02814597 pp.2, 12–13. The women’s names, the descriptions attached to them and the photographs are redacted in this copy and none is supplied here. ↩ ↩2

  14. “Ellesse Management Team,” undated management biography of Byron Hero. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01101138 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  15. Email, Ramsey Elkholy to Jeffrey Epstein, September 11, 2016, subject “Re: Joy Models,” carrying Epstein’s question of the same day and Elkholy’s message of September 10. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00818528 p.1. A private individual named in the quoted message is not identified here. ↩ ↩2

  16. Elite Model Look, “Competition Terms And Conditions,” January 2026, read September 5, 2026. https://www.elitemodellook.com/int/en/terms/index.htm ↩

  17. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to a correspondent whose name and address are redacted, May 18, 2011, subject “Re: me 2,” quoting the signature block of the message it answers. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01863613 p.1. ↩

  18. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name, address and signature block are redacted apart from Elite’s web address, June 24, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00913500 p.1. ↩

  19. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name is redacted, December 21, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01990479 p.1. ↩

  20. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name is redacted, October 12, 2017, carrying a link to a profile page on elitemodel.com in which the model’s name is redacted. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02349974 p.1. The link itself and the descriptions of two redacted individuals in the message are not reproduced. ↩

  21. Ali Dukakis and Aicha El Hammar Castano, “Jeffrey Epstein associate Jean Luc Brunel found dead by suicide in prison,” ABC News, Feb. 19, 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/International/jeffrey-epstein-associate-jean-luc-brunel-found-dead/story?id=83001807 ↩

  22. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name is redacted, June 19, 2011, carrying Epstein’s message of the same day addressed to Jean Luc Brunel. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00913687 p.1. ↩

  23. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to the same correspondent, February 12, 2014, subject “Re: For you,” quoting the message it answers of the same day. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00633431 p.1. A private medical matter in the quoted message is not reproduced. ↩

  24. Email to Jeffrey Epstein from a correspondent whose name and signature block are redacted, February 24, 2014, subject “Model agency.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00693668 pp.1–2. A company registration number printed in the signature block is not reproduced. ↩

  25. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to Ramsey Elkholy, October 2, 2016, subject “Re: Info,” carrying Elkholy’s message of the same day and Epstein’s earlier reply. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00816365 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  26. Email, Jeffrey Epstein to Ramsey Elkholy, September 26, 2016, carrying Elkholy’s message of the same day. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00817222 p.1. ↩

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