1 hour ago
3
A French modelling scout accused of procuring women for Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead in his home, according to reports.
Daniel Siad – who was named more than 2,000 times in the Department of Justice’s Epstein files – was found dead in his home in Colombes, west of Paris, on Monday, prosecutors said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
His cause of death currently remains unclear pending an autopsy.
Siad was being investigated in France over accusations he helped Epstein traffic and abuse women. He had long denied wrongdoing, saying he had no idea the convicted pedophile “was dangerous.”
Siad and Epstein communicated for around 10 years – with their last correspondence soon before the financier’s 2019 suicide in a Manhattan lockup.
Siad bragged about the women he had found in emails included in the Epstein files.
“Hello Jeffrey, I just found an amizinng [sic] one. She is 20 years old but she looks younger, from Latvia,” he wrote in one sent in June 2009, one year after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution.
In one July 2014 email, Siad appeared to compare recruiting women to fishing.
“In this busyness [sic] I feel like fisherman, some time I cache quick, some time no fish,” he reportedly wrote to Epstein.
In that particular exchange, Siad expressed frustration that Epstein had canceled a meeting.
“I will reimburse you of course for any expenses,” Epstein replied back. “I value your friendship and hope this did not cause you too much trouble.”
Siad always denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
In February, he told French TV Epstein had “used [his] trust” and claimed he was not “in a position to know that this man was dangerous.”
“I have nothing to blame myself for,” he said in a video shared online.
Siad tried to frame himself as someone who was “from Kabylia [a region of Algeria], born French and a Swedish citizen.”
But he was accused by two women of grooming them for Epstein.
In February, ex-Swedish model Ebba Karlsson accused Siad of raping her when she was 20, and grooming her for Gerald Marie, the former chief of the Elite modeling agency. Siad and Marie denied the allegations.
In May, one model, known only as Juliette, said she was groomed by Siad in 2004 when she was 21 years old.
She claimed he asked if she was a model and had aspirations of moving to the US.
“I think he was trying to gauge whether I would accept without asking too many questions. Which I did – I let things stay vague so I wouldn’t come across as difficult,” she told AFP.
Juliette said she was sent a plane ticket to New York and headed to Madison Avenue when she touched down.
She met Epstein and claimed he asked for her passport, which she likened to “hostage taking.”
Epstein reportedly told her he couldn’t see her – but gave her $120 and said she could use his limo to go shopping.
The day after her shopping spree, she went to the Madison Avenue building, hoping for an interview, but claimed she was given a tour – walking through areas with “photos zooming in on women’s intimate body parts.”
“My internal alarm went off,” she said after being led to a bedroom.
“I felt the need to say, ‘I’m warning you, I’m not going to do anything.'”
She claimed Epstein groped her – before he offered her a job as a so-called party “escort.” She demanded her passport and escaped New York.
Stan Pottinger, an Epstein victims lawyer, said in 2016 he had spoken to Siad, “whom Jean Luc Brunel [a model scout and longtime Epstein associate found dead in 2022] describes as a ‘scout’ or recruiter of girls and/or women for J. Epstein.”
English (US)