Accuser Says Arrest Was Close: Epstein-Linked Scout Found Dead in Paris

Daniel Siad, accused by several women of recruiting for Jeffrey Epstein, died before he could be questioned — the latest figure in the network to die before facing trial

Daniel Siad, a French-Swedish modelling scout with close ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been found dead at his home in a Paris suburb, prosecutors and his lawyer confirmed on Wednesday.

Siad, 69, was among several French men accused of helping Epstein traffic and abuse women. He was found dead in Colombes on Monday, and the Nanterre prosecutor’s office said an investigation was opened that evening to establish the cause of death, with an autopsy planned as part of the inquiry.

French investigators had been examining allegations against him, including rape and human trafficking, but he had not yet been questioned. Siad denied the allegations and had said he wanted the opportunity to give his account. His lawyer, Menya Arab-Tigrine, told AFP that “he is dead and he was innocent,” adding that if he had died of a heart attack, the sustained pressure and anxiety he was under had likely contributed.

The documents and the accusations

Siad’s name reportedly appears in more than 1,000 documents released among the declassified Epstein files. In a 2014 email to Epstein, he described his recruitment work in casual terms, likening it to fishing — sometimes successful, sometimes not — while maintaining that Epstein had exploited his trust.

Several women have accused him of recruiting them for Epstein. A former French model, identified only as Juliette G. to protect her privacy, said she was introduced to Epstein through Siad in 2004 and had regarded him as a potential source of answers about what happened to her.

Former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, who filed the first complaint against Siad in February, accusing him of raping her when she was 20, told AFP the case had been close to producing an arrest, and expressed frustration that justice could no longer be pursued through him. Karlsson has also linked Siad to Gerald Marie, the former European head of the Elite modelling agency, who faces separate rape and trafficking allegations from several women and denies wrongdoing.

Lisa Brinkworth, a former BBC journalist and co-founder of a support collective for victims of abuse in the modelling industry, said the Paris prosecutor’s office had known Siad was closely tied to Epstein and facing serious allegations, and criticised the absence of action against him. She called on prosecutors to investigate others connected to Epstein who face similar accusations.

A recurring pattern

Siad’s death follows a familiar course among men linked to Epstein’s network. French authorities arrested the modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel in 2020 over allegations that he had procured women for Epstein; Brunel was later found dead in his cell at La Santé prison in Paris in February 2022, in a death classified by French authorities as suicide.

Epstein himself died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. That death was also ruled a suicide, though subsequent reporting and government reviews identified lapses in overnight supervision before he was discovered during a morning check.

Reference: Al-Mayadeen