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Daniel Siad, a model scout accused of recruiting women for the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead at his home on the outskirts of Paris, a death that shook the accusers who were seeking justice this Wednesday.
French judicial authorities were investigating the 69-year-old man following several complaints from women, particularly for rape. He denied the allegations and claimed he wanted to be questioned to give his version of events.
But he was found dead on Monday at his home in Colombes, northwest of Paris, and the justice system is now investigating "the causes of death," indicated the Nanterre prosecutor's office, confirming a report by the newspaper Le Parisien.
"He died an innocent man," his lawyer Menya Arab-Tigrine declared to AFP, adding that "if he died of a heart attack, that unbearable [judicial] wait, the pressure and the anguish in which he lived daily must have had something to do with it."
Swedish former model Ebba P. Karlsson filed the first complaint in February after recognizing him in the declassified files regarding Epstein, in which Daniel Siad is mentioned in more than a thousand documents.
In her complaint, she accused the scout of raping her when she was 20 and of sexually exploiting her by introducing her to Gérald Marie, the former director of the prestigious Elite model agency, whom she also accused of rape. Both have always denied it.
"I am shocked," Karlsson told AFP. "Daniel Siad was about to be arrested. We have worked so hard to obtain justice and now... It is very frustrating," she added.
"We were all afraid that he would be killed to prevent him from talking about the other criminals... I hope that a thorough investigation into the circumstances of his death will be carried out," she noted.
The Paris prosecutor's office stated that with Siad's death, the proceedings against him are extinguished, but the investigation continues into "the charges of human trafficking in an organized gang and criminal conspiracy with the intent of preparing a crime" linked to Epstein, who had an apartment in the French capital.
- "Devastador" -
Karlsson and British journalist Lisa Brinkworth—who accuses Gérald Marie of sexual assault in 1998—founded the collective "Victorious Angels - WE RISE," which for several years has denounced sexual violence in this sector and within Epstein's circle.
In 2019, the American financier, arrested for the sexual exploitation of minors, was found hanged in his cell in the United States.
And in 2022, French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a close associate of Epstein, committed suicide in detention after being charged with the rape of minors and sexual harassment.
"It is devastating that the survivors of the Brunel case were first denied justice, and now those of the Siad case," lamented Brinkworth in statements to AFP. "The police should have arrested him" after the complaints, she added.
His lawyers Colomba Grossi and William Bourdon denounced a "grave failure" by the Paris prosecutor's office, which "makes a mockery of victims of sexual crimes."
After Brunel's death, the investigations were closed without looking into his associates, even though Siad's name had appeared in the case.
The declassification in the United States of thousands of files belonging to Jeffrey Epstein reactivated them, with the opening at the beginning of 2026 of a wide-ranging inquiry by the Paris prosecutor's office.
Siad represented a valuable lead, Juliette G., a 43-year-old former French model who claims he recruited her in Paris to introduce her to Epstein in 2004, pointed out to AFP.
In June, investigators summoned her as a witness to gather "supplementary information," she told AFP. But with his death, "another link to clarify the history and find those responsible has vanished," she lamented.
[Publicidad]