Daniel Siad, the French model recruiter who spent more than a decade introducing young women to Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead at his home outside Paris on Monday, French prosecutors said, with the cause of death still under investigation.
Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, confirmed the death on Wednesday and said an inquiry opened the evening the body was discovered. Siad, 69, was found at his home in Colombes, a Paris suburb. An autopsy has been ordered.
Siad acknowledged arranging meetings between Epstein and multiple aspiring models over more than ten years, and said he believed at the time that Epstein worked as a casting director for Victoria’s Secret and a major modelling agency. He continued the association after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on sex offences, saying Epstein had convinced him he had changed. Two women have since alleged that Siad introduced them to Epstein, who they say went on to abuse them.
Siad’s name appears in nearly 2,000 documents among the Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice, including emails in which he sent Epstein photographs of young women he described as potential assistants. He was separately facing a French legal proceeding over an alleged 1990 rape, which he denied, and French media have reported accusations from several other women involving rape and trafficking, all of which he disputed. Authorities have not said whether his death is connected to any of the pending matters.
Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators in the French probe. His lawyer, Menya Arab-Tigrine, told AFP that “he died an innocent man.”
The death follows a similar case in France in 2022, when modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was also accused of procuring women for Epstein, killed himself in a French prison cell while awaiting trial. Siad’s death leaves investigators without another figure who had direct knowledge of Epstein’s recruitment network in Europe.
The cause of Siad’s death has not been established, and French authorities have given no timeline for the autopsy results.
