Former French model Juliette G. says it took her years to make sense of how she ended up in a New York bedroom with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The 43-year-old is one of two ex-models who have accused Daniel Siad, a French modelling scout with close ties to the late US financier, of having groomed them with the aim of introducing them to potential abusers.
Their stories come as part of a wider reckoning with rape and sexual assault in the wake of the global MeToo movement in recent years that has seen a number of accusations in France and beyond.Â
"I identified quite a few stages that led me there," Juliette told AFP.
"These men, through manipulation, conduct tests to see how far a young woman will give in."
For Juliette, who has asked to withhold her surname to protect her privacy, it all started in 2004, when she was 21.
Siad -- who denies the accusations against him -- approached her in a Paris avenue. She calls this the "targeting" stage.
He asked her if she was a model and if she would be interested in "professional opportunities" in the United States.
"I think he was trying to gauge whether I would accept without asking too many questions. Which I did -- I let things stay vague so I wouldn't come across as difficult," she said.
She was soon sent a plane ticket to New York and an address in the city. She had no other information, but she felt reassured when her modelling agency said they knew Siad.
In New York, she headed to an address on Madison Avenue, where she briefly met Epstein, whose name Siad had not mentioned until then.
The financier would be convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
- 'In his debt' -
Epstein asked for her passport.
This, she explained, was the second stage of her grooming -- "hostage taking". Without her passport, she could not leave.
Epstein then announced he did not have time to see her that day, but gave her $120 and said she could use his limousine to go shopping.
This, she said, was the third step. Now, despite never having asked for money, she was "in his debt".
"I was ashamed for a long time. Years later, I even thought about paying him back," she added.
The following day, she returned to the Madison Avenue building, hoping for a professional interview.
Instead, he showed her around the premises, walking through a gym decorated with "photos zooming in on women's intimate body parts".
"Was it a subtle test of tolerance?" she said. "To see whether I would leave or accept being in such a surprising environment?"
Then he led her to a bedroom.
"My internal alarm went off," she said.
"I felt the need to say, 'I'm warning you, I'm not going to do anything.'"
She said he told her not to worry, but that he needed to see her body -- including her breasts -- to be able to recommend her to modelling agencies.
"I hesitated, but I'd just spent seven hours on a plane and they'd paid for my ticket... I did it," she said.
- 'Get back into shape' -
Epstein groped her, she said, then declared her body was not up to standard and she would need three months to "get back into shape".
He said that if she needed money, he could set her up to work as a party "escort".
Juliette pretended to mull the offer, but demanded he give her back her passport. She said he rummaged around in a pile of "some twenty passports" and returned it to her.
Juliette escaped.
Epstein died in custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges involving minors.
But Juliette said she was speaking out to help investigators looking for the convicted offender's accomplices.
Siad, who is under investigation in France, is just one of several French men who have been accused of aiding Epstein to traffic and abuse women.
French authorities in late 2020 arrested modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel after allegations he procured women for the US billionaire. He was found dead in prison in 2022.
And 15 women in March urged France to investigate Gerald Marie, the former European head of Elite, a modelling agency known for managing supermodels Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford.
Among them, former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson has accused Siad of grooming her for Marie.
- 'You could go so far' -
Karlsson, now 56, said Siad approached her in Sweden in 1990. She was 20 years old.
"He was very talented," she said, describing how he would push a person to see how vulnerable they were.
"He would attach to their desires, their longings, and portray himself as some kind of saviour," she said, promising he could make them "a very famous model".
"And they were hooked," she said.
Karlsson said she followed Siad to Monaco and then to France, but the modelling jobs he had promised never materialised. Without money, she "became more and more dependent on him".
Karlsson said that one evening, in a pool house near Cannes, Siad raped her.
In the days that followed, she said, he announced he had found her a job with Elite.
Siad, via his lawyer Menya Arab-Tigrine, rejected the accusations. She said she hoped her client was not being made to "bear responsibility, because he is still alive, for the actions of other men who have died".
Karlsson then met Marie in his office to discuss working for Elite.
"Why is he closing the blinds?" she said she thought.
He flattered her.
"You're so beautiful," she said he told her. "You could go so far," she said he added, introducing the idea of her starring in a movie.
Then suddenly "he put his fingers into me," she said.Â
"It was to remove my power," she added.
Karlsson said she later attended an audition at his home, where she was one among "about ten girls" -- most appearing younger and speaking little English or French -- to be told to parade braless.
She pretended to accept the job, but flew back to Sweden and never returned.
Marie's lawyer Celine Bekerman denounced what she called "unfounded attacks" against her client.
She said a rape probe against Marie had been dropped in 2023. She accused Karlsson and other plaintiffs of choosing to ignore this and establish "far-fetched links between Gerald Marie and cases he has nothing to do with".
Karlsson said she was speaking up about the grooming and abuse so "we can stop that behaviour and teach young people" how to avoid it.
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