A French model recruiter who spent more than ten years connecting Jeffrey Epstein with women in the fashion industry was found dead Monday at his home in Colombes, a suburb outside Paris, according to a Wednesday statement from Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court.
Daniel Siad’s body will undergo an autopsy to determine how he died, CNN reports.
In a recent interview with CNN, Siad had maintained that he had no reason to believe two women he’d introduced to Epstein, both of whom told CNN they were abused by him, had come to any harm through the connection.
Even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on sex crimes, Siad remained among the modeling industry figures who continued working with him, brought him into fashion circles, and kept him tied to their businesses. Siad said Epstein had personally reassured him that he’d paid his debt to society and that nothing similar would happen to anyone Siad introduced him to.
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“I trusted him and believed this guy was a professional person,” Siad told CNN in an interview published in June, adding that none of the women he’d connected with Epstein had ever reported a bad experience back to him. Siad also claimed he’d understood Epstein to be working as a casting director for Victoria’s Secret and the modeling agency MC2, though CNN found nothing to support that account.
Paris prosecutors said their wide-ranging investigation into Epstein-related allegations of human trafficking and criminal conspiracy, opened in February, will continue despite Siad’s death.
So far, 24 women have either come forward on their own or been identified through a review of records and a public appeal from investigators, with at least 16 already interviewed and more sessions planned. Prosecutors said that even with special investigative measures in place, including wiretaps, they had not yet gathered sufficient evidence to justify arresting Siad.
Records released by the U.S. Department of Justice show Epstein paid Siad tens of thousands of dollars over the years. In one exchange included in those files, Siad flagged a woman he’d met in Marrakesh as interested in meeting Epstein. He also told CNN separately that Epstein had once asked him to help find a personal assistant, and DOJ records show Siad emailing in 2018 that he was on the lookout for an attractive young assistant on Epstein’s behalf.
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In another exchange, Siad sent a photo of a woman he described as polite and promising, either as a model or an assistant, to which Epstein responded that she was too old. According to the DOJ files, Siad routinely sent Epstein photographs of young women he came across while traveling, some in suggestive poses. His name reportedly appears more than 2,000 times across the Epstein documents released by the Justice Department, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a Russian-born model who has said Siad introduced her to Epstein and that she was subsequently abused by him, told CNN this week that her life would have taken a completely different path had she never met Siad. She said his death now means he’ll never be held accountable, and that what she’d wanted most was a real investigation and some sense of closure.
Siad’s attorney, Ménya Arab-Tigrine, said in a statement Wednesday that her client had been prepared to endure intense media scrutiny in order to help the truth come out, and that his death should not be taken as an admission of guilt, noting he had never been formally charged or implicated in any legal proceeding. She said it would take the autopsy results to determine whether he died of natural causes.
Epstein’s connections to the fashion industry remain under active investigation, including the criminal probe opened this year in Paris that has been examining information tied to Siad, according to the city’s chief prosecutor. Separately, Siad had faced his own abuse allegations, including a rape accusation from a model who said the assault occurred while she was working in France in 1990, a claim Siad denied.
