In email after email, modeling scouts on the global hunt for talent shared updates with an unexpected correspondent: Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender with no official role in the industry.
One scout boasted of a modeling prospect as a “cute French girl” who would be “happy to meet you,” and described how a group of 16- and 17-year-old potential models from Scandinavia “will be ready for next year.” Another recruiter touted a 19-year-old Russian who was “ready to travel,” while another extolled a young model as the “best girl.”
“She’s a gift that I had been planning on giving you,” the recruiter wrote.
Those professionals were far from alone in their embrace of the disgraced financier.
A CNN review of the trove of files released by the Department of Justice reveals new details about the depth of ties between Epstein and modeling industry insiders, including agency executives, administrators and recruiters.
The records illustrate a symbiotic relationship between the sex offender and some within the global industry, with Epstein providing money, professional connections and help with US visas, while modeling professionals gave him access to young, foreign women – many of whom now say he sexually abused them.
Even after Epstein’s 2008 sex crimes conviction, modeling insiders continued seeking to launch business ventures with him, invited him to fashion events and permitted him to associate with their companies, giving Epstein the aura of an executive who could make or break the careers of the models he preyed on.
CNN reviewed emails showing that at least six industry figures repeatedly sought to connect the registered sex offender with young models. While some of their messages contained sexual references, others appeared to be professional modeling referrals. The records also show numerous other insiders who kept friendly correspondence with Epstein.
Some Epstein associates have been charged with crimes including Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent accused of abuse by a prominent Epstein victim; Brunel died by suicide in a Paris prison after an arrest in 2020 on charges of raping minors. He denied the allegations.
Other modeling insiders in the DOJ records have not been accused of any wrongdoing and have denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. Many have said they believed Epstein was a legitimate figure in fashion thanks to his ties to the former owner of Victoria’s Secret, whose finances he once managed.
Daniel Siad, a professional model recruiter who arranged for Epstein to meet multiple models – including two who told CNN that Epstein abused them – said in an interview he had no reason to believe those women were being harmed. Siad said Epstein assured him he had paid for his crimes and that “this would never happen with anybody” Siad referred to him.
Model scout who sent young women to Epstein: ‘I trusted him’
“I never heard anything from anyone I introduced to him who came back to me that they had a bad situation,” Siad said. “I believed this guy is a professional person.”
The DOJ files suggest Siad knew he wasn’t just referring young women to Epstein for modeling opportunities. In a 2018 message, he wrote that he was looking for a “good looking young assistant” for Epstein. He also repeatedly sent Epstein photos of young women he encountered during his travels – some of them with provocative poses.
Siad said, in hindsight, Epstein was a “chameleon” who deceived him. He said Epstein had been introduced to him as a casting director and that Epstein separately asked for help finding an assistant.
Epstein’s ties to the industry are part of ongoing investigations by lawmakers and law enforcement officials, including a criminal probe launched this year in Paris that is reviewing information related to Siad, according to the chief prosecutor of Paris. Two former models told CNN they spoke to investigators there about Siad, who has denied wrongdoing.
Advocates say those investigations could bring long-overdue accountability to an industry that has turned a blind eye to sexual abuse of young models for decades.
“In some cases, the modeling industry is just a front for trafficking. I think that happens at the highest levels of business,” said Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance, an advocacy group that has called for a deeper investigation into if and how the fashion world helped facilitate Epstein’s abuse.
Long before Epstein made headlines for sex offenses, he had a reputation as an enigmatic financier with one well-known client: Les Wexner, the retail magnate over Victoria’s Secret, who drafted him to help with investments in the 1980s.
That tie to Wexner, combined with Epstein’s regular attendance at fashion shows and practice of surrounding himself with young models, bolstered his appearance as an industry player.
Yet Epstein never had any formal modeling industry role – a fact belied by the DOJ files, which contain multiple law enforcement interviews with aspiring models who say professional contacts or word of mouth led them to Epstein.
One of the first allegations that Epstein was exploiting his associations with the modeling world appeared in a police report filed in 1997 in California. A woman told investigators that when Epstein asked her to undress, she believed he could get her into the lingerie company’s catalogue.
“He actually assisted her by pulling her blouse up and pulling her skirt up and groping her buttocks,” the report states. Local authorities did not charge Epstein.
A few years later, in the early 2000s, Epstein lured a woman from South Africa to the US by offering to help launch her modeling career, she told CNN.
“He said he’d make my dream come true, but he turned it into a f**king nightmare,” said Juliette Bryant, who said she was abused by Epstein. She added that he never helped her book a modeling job.
Epstein established a more direct connection to the industry thanks to his friendship with Brunel, the French modeling agent, who had long partied with Epstein and frequently hitched rides on his private jet.
Around 2005, Epstein provided a $1 million line of credit to Brunel that he used to launch a firm called MC2 Model Management. Brunel had already faced accusations of drugging and sexually assaulting models, but at that point had not been criminally charged and continued to work in the industry.
The new firm aimed to “represent high fashion models in a boutique agency setting,” according to documents.
But at times Epstein also used the agency to reach young women, some of whom he abused, according to multiple former MC2 models in testimony before Congress and interviews.
Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a Russian-born model, had been working across Europe, sometimes bringing in $2,000 to $3,000 per day, but she hoped to level up in the US. She told CNN that Siad, the Paris-based recruiter, introduced her to Epstein, who promised to help her break into the New York market. She signed with MC2, but her career stalled as she sometimes only booked one job a week worth a few hundred dollars.
She said she then became a personal assistant to Epstein. She said she did little actual work for him and endured years of abuse.
According to Pozhidaeva, MC2 continued sponsoring her visa despite her working for Epstein – not as a model.
“I knew that I could not go anywhere else in terms of my employment. They knew that I was working for him and they kept renewing my visa,” Pozhidaeva said. “There was definitely an arrangement between them.”
DOJ files bolster her claims regarding her employment. Emails appear to show Epstein and his accountant spoke to Brunel and MC2’s then-president, Jeff Fuller, about Pozhidaeva. The accountant later told her to call Fuller, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, about a “visa extension.”
Another former MC2 model said at a House hearing in May that the agency “controlled every aspect” of her life and sent her to Epstein’s house after she had been recruited from Uzbekistan.
A third MC2 model told CNN the agency’s management at the time, including Fuller, should have seen warning signs regarding Epstein, particularly because she said Epstein housed some of the models in an apartment in New York. She said Epstein groped her in the mid-2000s.
Publicly, Fuller sought to distance MC2 from Epstein after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution, a conviction that followed a lenient deal to serve just 13 months jail time but forced him to register as a sex offender.
Fuller told the New York Post after Epstein’s first arrest that the financier had “no ownership or involvement in our company.”
But records show Fuller consulted with Epstein’s accountant as the company sought to pay off debt. In an email about finances, Fuller wrote to Brunel that he thought they had “probably been pushing our courtesy” from Epstein “to an extreme.”
In an interview with CNN, Fuller emphasized that he did not hear complaints about Epstein or see signs of any abuse of models working for MC2.
“I never did,” Fuller said. “Being a parent and having two daughters myself – I’ve been in this business for a long time – I would have walked right out of the company if anyone would have ever come to me and said they were in a compromising situation.”
Fuller also downplayed the importance of Epstein’s finances to the company and said he had no knowledge of Epstein seeking to use the business to secure a visa for Pozhidaeva.
“I ran the booking room and I didn’t really have much control,” he said of his oversight at MC2. “I’m really sad that nobody said anything.”
The third MC2 model who said Epstein abused her said she found that defense difficult to believe.
“You can close your eyes, but I think it would have been really difficult for him to not know what was going on,” the model, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal, said of Fuller.
In the wake of Epstein’s Florida conviction, emails show that numerous other fashion world figures also stayed in contact with Epstein.
“I WILL ALWAYS LOVE AND BE THER FOR YOU,” Faith Kates, cofounder of the prominent modeling agency Next Management, wrote in 2009.
Kates repeatedly offered to do favors for Epstein.
During his Florida prison sentence, Epstein asked Kates if she would check on the work visa of a woman whose name is redacted in the publicly released email. “Will do,” Kates responded.
In the years that followed, Kates updated Epstein on the location of an apparent model from Latvia, recommended a doctor to him for someone’s breast augmentation surgery, got him fashion show tickets and passed along the name of a woman after Epstein had asked her to keep an eye out “for my new assistant.”
Emails show the favors went both ways.
Epstein gifted Kates what she described as a “beautiful” Prada bag, offered her business advice, invited her shopping with then-Prince Andrew and referred models to her.
“Epstein was a master manipulator. People around him knew only what he wanted them to know. Ms. Kates was one of those grossly misled by Epstein,” a spokesperson for Kates, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, told CNN.
Many of the models who say Epstein abused them came to the US from abroad. The DOJ files add new clarity into how Epstein tapped into a global modeling network by developing relationships with recruiters outside the US – some of whom he directly paid as they searched the world for new talent.
“I can prepare the list of the girls,” a woman who identified herself as Victoria Housez wrote to Epstein in 2013. Housez, who stated in emails she worked in Paris and had scouted for agencies including Next, repeatedly sent Epstein information on models in their late teens or early 20s.
Next said in a statement Housez never scouted for the company.
“Tell me the day you want me to come with her,” Housez wrote in a message in which she shared information about a Next model she said had been featured in underwear ads. In another email, she presented a young woman she said she had discovered four or five years earlier at the age of 14. “Very good personality, like her very much,” wrote Housez, who did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment and has not been accused of wrongdoing.
The files do not indicate whether Epstein met up with any of the models she forwarded him, but records do show Epstein sent Housez a few thousand dollars listed as “gifts.”
Siad, the Paris-based recruiter, was another regular correspondent with Epstein.
“Please send me the details of the girls,” Epstein wrote in 2014 to Siad, who repeatedly sent him photos of young women he met during his travels in Europe, North Africa and the Caribbean.
Siad had earlier struck a deal to recruit models for Brunel, according to emails, though he then began receiving payments directly from Epstein that totaled tens of thousands of dollars in the 2010s. When Deutsche Bank flagged some of the transactions between Epstein and Siad for review, Epstein’s accountant described them as payments for photography and a loan. Asked generally about payments from Epstein, Siad told CNN they were scouting fees.
Siad did more than share photos with Epstein. He also arranged video chats and in-person meetings with young women, though Epstein rejected some of Siad’s referrals.
“Too old,” he replied when Siad shared a photo of a woman he said had “potential as model or as assistant.” Epstein approved of others.
Pozhidaeva, the former model, said she met Siad at a modeling agency in Paris. Epstein’s apparent power and deep ties in the modeling world to industry players like Siad contributed to her trusting him, she said.
“He had an army of model scouts, photographers, owners of modeling agencies. He built this whole ecosystem,” she said.
DOJ files show Siad came onto the radar of federal law enforcement, though he has not been charged. One document states Brunel had identified Siad as a “recruiter” for Epstein.
In an interview with CNN at his lawyer’s office in Paris, Siad adamantly denied knowing about Epstein’s abuse at the time he referred women to him. “I don’t know his private life,” he said.
“I realized very late that this guy was very dangerous,” Siad said, adding that he regrets ever meeting Epstein. “Now when I know what he has done as a monster, I don’t have the words. I am completely devastated.”
Amid the fallout of the Epstein files, some of his closest ties in the modeling world have faced new scrutiny as models and survivors have called for accountability and further reform within the industry.
Kates announced her retirement from Next late last year as the government began releasing Epstein’s emails. Her announcement referenced her ongoing work with a foundation and stated she wanted to “step back, in order to give back.”
Her former firm Next has stated her relationship with Epstein was unknown to company leadership, yet records show another company co-founder emailed and spoke to Epstein’s accountant about business matters and that Epstein joined a call with an accountant working for Next.
Next told CNN that other cofounder never met or communicated with Epstein and wasn’t aware that that accountant worked for Epstein.
DOJ leaders have sought to move on from the Epstein case, but authorities in other jurisdictions where Epstein interacted with the modeling world are continuing to investigate. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in Paris said a probe remains ongoing.
Ebba Karlsson, a former model, told CNN she filed a complaint with Paris police in February that accused Siad of rape and human trafficking. She said she later spoke to authorities there in person. She said now she is waiting “for the justice system in France to do its job,” adding, “we have been waiting too long.”
Asked about Karlsson’s accusations, Siad said he does not remember her. “I have never abused any model in my life,” he said.
Juliette, a former French model who requested her last name not be shared for privacy concerns, told CNN she has also spoken to authorities in Paris about her experience. She said she met Siad in France in 2004 who then referred her to Epstein in New York. She alleges that Epstein then groped her during a meeting in which he told her to get in shape so he could introduce her to modeling agencies. In the meantime, he offered her escorting opportunities.
In hindsight, Juliette said the modeling industry should have clearly recognized Epstein as a predator and stopped him, but she said he was far from the only abuser in that world.
“Epstein was just one of the dangers I used to face,” she said.
CNN’s Elina Baudier Kim contributed to this report.
