Paris, France - A French modeling scout with close ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home outside Paris, prosecutors and his lawyer said on Wednesday.

Under investigation in France, Daniel Siad (69) was one of several French men accused of aiding the financier to traffic and abuse women.

He also faced separate allegations including rape and human trafficking.

Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators, but had denied the allegations.

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"An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the discovery," the prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre said.

An autopsy will be carried out as part of the probe.

Siad's lawyer Menya Arab-Tigrine said her client had requested to give his side of the story before he died.

"He is dead, and he was innocent," Arab-Tigrine told AFP.

"If he died of a heart attack, the unbearable waiting, the pressure and the anxiety he suffered every day will have had something to do with it," she added.

The Paris prosecutor's office said it was dropping a probe targeting Siad after his death, but pursuing a wider probe into alleged human trafficking linked to Epstein, who had a flat in the French capital.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

French authorities in 2020 arrested modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel after allegations he procured women for the billionaire. 

Brunel was later found dead in prison in 2022.

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Siad's name appeared in more than 1,000 documents released as part of the declassified Epstein files.

He has publicly insisted Epstein had "taken advantage of his trust".

For victims, Siad represented a possible avenue to finally "shed light on what happened" in relation to Epstein, said Juliette G., a former French model who says Siad recruited her in 2004 to introduce her to Epstein in New York.

"Another link in the chain has disappeared that could have helped uncover the truth and identify those responsible," said the woman, who has asked to withhold her surname to protect her privacy.

Former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, now in her fifties, filed the first complaint against Siad in February, accusing him of raping her when she was 20.

"It's very frustrating," Karlsson told AFP. "He was very close to being arrested. We worked so hard for this, trying to have justice."