Fact Check: Does viral photo show Ghislaine Maxwell with Chief Justice John Roberts?

WASHINGTON, DC: Following the January 30 release of millions of documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, several images spread online.

In late February, a photo went viral on social media claiming to show Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts seated beside Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell. But is there any truth to this? Let us find out below.

Claim: Photo shows Ghislaine Maxwell with Chief Justice John Roberts

An X user shared the alleged image mentioned in the caption, "Justice Roberts is compromised. How many other Justices have been?"

Interestingly, this is not the first time the claim has gone viral online. Last year, several social media accounts shared the same image along with the same claim.

Maxwell was arrested on July 2, 2020, by the FBI at a secluded property in Bradford, New Hampshire. She faced federal charges from the Southern District of New York.

She is currently serving her 20-year sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas — a minimum-security facility. Maxwell was transferred there in August 2025 after earlier stints at facilities in Brooklyn and Tallahassee, Florida.

In February 2026, Maxwell virtually appeared before a congressional committee investigating Epstein's connections. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions about her role, Epstein's network, or related matters. 

Fact Check: False, person in the image is French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel

The claims made in the online posts are false, as the person shown in the viral image with Ghislaine Maxwell is French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in prison in 2022.

A reverse-image search using TinEye showed the image first appeared on the Daily Mail website on August 19, 2020, along with the caption, "Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite who orchestrated Epstein's social life, can be seen embracing Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model agency boss."

Meanwhile, an earlier article published on July 30, 2020, by the French newspaper 20 Minutes, also showed the image, alongside another photo from the same scene. 

The article identified the man as Brunel and mentioned that the photos "were provided to '20 Minutes'." However, the outlet did not offer any further details about the origin of the Image.

Moreover, a similar image from the scene surfaced in January 2024, when it was included in a batch of unsealed documents from the Giuffre vs Maxwell civil case. The image appears in Document 1332-7 with the caption, "Defendant with Jean Luc Brunel in 2006," confirming that the man in the photo is Brunel, not Roberts.