Daniel Siad, a French model recruiter who spent more than a decade arranging meetings between late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and aspiring models, has been found dead at his home near Paris.
Siad’s body was discovered on Monday at his residence in Colombes, a suburb of the French capital, Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, confirmed in a statement to CNN on Wednesday.
Authorities said an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.
CNN’s Katie Polglase interviewed Siad shortly before his death. During the interview, he insisted he had no reason to believe that two women he introduced to Epstein, who later told CNN they were abused by him, had suffered harm after the referrals.
Despite Epstein’s 2008 conviction for sex offences, Siad and other figures within the modelling industry reportedly continued pursuing business relationships with him, inviting him to fashion events and allowing him to maintain ties with their companies.
Siad said Epstein had convinced him he had already paid for his crimes and assured him that “this would never happen with anybody” Siad introduced to him.
“I trusted him and believed this guy was a professional person,” he told CNN in an interview published in June. “I never heard anything from anyone I introduced to him who came back to me that they had a bad situation. I believed this guy is a professional person.”
He also claimed he believed Epstein worked as a casting director for Victoria’s Secret and modelling agency MC2, although CNN said it found no evidence to support that assertion.
French prosecutors said their wide-ranging investigation, launched in February into allegations of human trafficking and criminal conspiracy linked to Epstein, will continue despite Siad’s death.
According to prosecutors, 24 women have either come forward or been identified during the investigation, while at least 16 have already been interviewed, with more interviews expected.
However, the prosecutor’s office said investigators had not gathered sufficient evidence to arrest Siad before his death.
“Daniel Siad was the subject of special investigative techniques, including telephone intercepts, although to date these have not produced evidence justifying his immediate arrest,” the office said.
Documents released by the US Department of Justice indicate Epstein paid Siad tens of thousands of dollars.
In one exchange, Siad wrote: “Cute French girl in Marrakesh… She said that she will (be) happy to meet you.”
He also told investigators that Epstein had sought his help in recruiting an assistant.
A 2018 email showed Siad searching for a “good looking young assistant” for Epstein.
In another message, Siad sent Epstein a photograph of a woman, describing her as “very polite” and someone who had “potential” as a “model” or “assistant.”
“Too old,” Epstein replied.
The Justice Department files also showed Siad repeatedly sending Epstein photographs of young women he met during his travels, including some in provocative poses.
According to CNN affiliate BFMTV, Siad’s name appears more than 2,000 times in the Justice Department’s Epstein files.
Russian-born model Svetlana Pozhidaeva previously told CNN that Siad introduced her to Epstein and alleged that Epstein later abused her.
“If it wasn’t for him, my life would have unfolded completely differently,” Pozhidaeva told CNN on Wednesday. She said Siad’s death meant he would never face accountability. “I wanted for justice to be served, for there to be some kind of investigation and achieve some closure,” she said.
Siad’s lawyer, Ménya Arab-Tigrine, said in a statement on Wednesday that his client had been willing to “subject himself to the grueling media spotlight…to see the truth come to light.”
“We must await the autopsy results to confirm whether his body simply gave out,” Arab-Tigrine said, maintaining that Siad was innocent and had neither been prosecuted nor “formally implicated in any legal proceedings.”
French authorities said investigations into Epstein’s connections with the modelling industry remain ongoing, including the criminal inquiry opened this year in Paris that had been examining information relating to Siad.
Separately, Siad had faced allegations of sexual abuse. A model accused him of raping her while she was working in France in 1990, an allegation he denied.
