Model Scout Linked to Jeffrey Epstein Case Found Dead in Paris

PARIS—Daniel Siad, a former model scout suspected of recruiting young women for the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead at his home in Colombes, a northwestern suburb of Paris, on the evening of July 20. He was 69.The Nanterre prosecutor’s office, which opened an inquiry to determine the cause of death, said in a July 24 statement that an autopsy had “not revealed an immediate cause of death at this stage” and that examiners found “no trace of recent violence that could be linked to the death.”The autopsy did show “a deteriorated state of health, as well as traces of an old heart attack that could expose [him] to a risk of sudden death,” the statement said.Toxicological and tissue analyses have been ordered, and the inquiry is continuing.Siad died without ever having been questioned by investigators, despite complaints accusing him of rape and sexual assault. Lawyers for his accusers called it a “denial of justice”; his own attorney said he was innocent.Prosecutors say the investigation into the French ramifications of the Epstein case will continue.Accused of Luring Models With Promises of WorkAn Algerian-born Swedish-Frenchman, Siad saw his name surface after the U.S. Department of Justice released roughly 3.5 million documents on the Epstein case on Jan. 30.In 2019, Daniel Siad had already come to the attention of police during an initial investigation seeking to identify possible French individuals linked to the Epstein case.Well connected in the modeling world, he was described by witnesses as a “rabatteur,” a French term for a procurer, who allegedly recruited models around the world and steered them toward Epstein.Epstein, who died in a New York jail in the summer of 2019, kept an apartment in Paris and spent significant time in the French capital.Weeks after Epstein’s death, Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into the French ramifications of this affair, initially centered on Jean-Luc Brunel, who took his own life in a Paris prison cell in 2022 at the age of 75 while under formal investigation for rape.While in custody, Brunel, who claimed his innocence, had made several suicide attempts.Following the January release, five women filed complaints against Siad accusing him of rape or sexual assault.According to their accounts, he approached them in Paris, on Avenue Montaigne or the Champs-Élysées, with promises of modeling work before putting them in contact with Epstein or other influential men, when they were then sexually exploited.All were adults at the time.The first to come forward, Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, said in her complaint that Siad raped her in Cannes in 1990, when she was 20.Siad categorically denied the accusations and described his relationship with Epstein as strictly professional. “I have never raped anyone in my life,” he told the French broadcaster BFMTV.“I am eagerly waiting to be questioned. I have nothing to reproach myself for,” he said in May.In a July 22 statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that while Siad’s death extinguishes criminal proceedings against him under French law, the broader investigation, opened Feb. 18 on counts of organized human trafficking and criminal conspiracy to prepare a crime, continues “in order to identify all the persons liable to be implicated.”According to the statement, 24 women have come forward or been identified as denouncing acts allegedly committed by Siad or by others; 16 have been interviewed since March 19, and eight more hearings are scheduled.Beccuau also disclosed that Siad had been wiretapped, though she said the taps had not, to date, yielded evidence warranting his immediate arrest.‘Denial of Justice’On July 23, Innocence in Danger, a French child protection association that supports numerous plaintiffs in the case and made the first reports to French authorities in 2019, announced it was suing the French state before the Paris judicial court for “denial of justice,” citing the slowness and opacity of the probe.“Seven women filed complaints against Siad for rape or sexual assault” in February and March, Mathias Darmon, a lawyer for the association, told The Epoch Times, noting that he had been known to police and the justice system for nearly a decade.In 2016, Stan Pottinger, an American lawyer representing Epstein’s accusers, sent a message to a New York prosecutor relaying information he had received from Brunel, who, he wrote, described Siad “as a ’scout’ or recruiter of girls and/or women for J. Epstein.”“I am ashamed of our justice system, ashamed of the slowness of the Paris prosecutor’s office in this case,” Darmon said.The slowness of the French justice system is a recurring source of controversy in the country, often attributed to factors including limited human and financial resources, a heavy caseload, complex legal procedures, poor organization, and a lack of modernization.Darmon said he has received “numerous messages from American victims stunned that Siad died without ever having had to answer for his actions before a judge.”‘He Was Innocent’Siad’s lawyer, Menya Arab-Tigrine, told The Epoch Times that her client “never ceased proclaiming his innocence” and had asked, “on several occasions, to be heard by the justice system, which did nothing of the sort.”Though discreet by nature, she said, he faced the media because he wanted the truth to come out.“If he died of a heart attack, that unbearable wait, the opprobrium cast on him, and on his relatives by extension, and the pressure and anxiety with which he lived daily will have played a part,” she said, while stressing that the autopsy results must be awaited.Saying that Siad was never prosecuted or formally implicated, she called for respect for his family’s mourning. “He is dead, and he was innocent,” she stated.