Daniel Siad, a French modelling agent who for more than a decade allegedly introduced young women from the fashion industry to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead on Monday at his home in Colombes, a suburb of Paris.

The death was confirmed by Marie-Celine Lawrysz, deputy prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, the French judicial authority responsible for the area where Siad lived. She said a post-mortem examination would be carried out to determine the exact cause of death.

Shortly before he died, Siad had given an interview to CNN in which he said he had not known that two women he introduced to Epstein would later accuse the financier of sexual abuse. He said Epstein had assured him that he had already paid for his crimes following his 2008 conviction and that nothing similar would happen again. “I trusted him and believed the guy was a professional,” he told CNN.

More than 2,000 mentions in the Epstein files

Documents released by the US Department of Justice show that Epstein paid Siad tens of thousands of dollars. The same files contain messages in which Siad kept Epstein informed about the young women he had met, in some cases sending photographs of potential models or candidates for an assistant’s position.

In one exchange, after Siad sent a photograph of a woman, Epstein reportedly replied curtly: “Too big.”

According to material that has become public, Siad’s name appears more than 2,000 times in Justice Department files relating to the Epstein case.

Epstein’s ties to the fashion industry remain under investigation, and a separate criminal inquiry is under way in France examining evidence connected to Siad.

Siad also faced accusations of sexual abuse in his own right. A model had accused him of rape, saying the incident took place in 1990 while she was working in France. Siad had denied the allegation.