Ebba Karlsson was 20 when she met him. She was with her boyfriend and her friends, hanging out in a park in downtown Stockholm, when an older French guy approached her, and asked if she had ever modelled. His name, he told her, was Daniel Goldberg. And he was a model scout with connections all over.
A little while later, she was with him in a beautiful villa near Cannes, overlooking the Mediterranean. It was there, she says, that he raped her.
“Afterwards I blamed myself”, she tells Helen Pidd, “because I thought why didn’t I fight back or punch him or run away? But I was too scared to.”
For decades though, Ebba could find out little about this Daniel Goldberg. It was only late last year – once the Epstein files were released – that a journalist called her with the news. They had found the scout … but his name was Daniel Siad.
Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman describes what is know about Daniel Siad – the model scout accused by multiple women of human trafficking and rape – and his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
After his sudden death at his home in Paris last week, what now for the women pursuing justice against Siad, and the many enablers of Epstein’s crimes?
Photograph: US Department of Justice
