The Paris Court of Appeal will deliver its decision on March 10 on the request of actor Gérard Depardieu to cancel his indictment for “rape” and “sexual assault” on actress Charlotte Arnould, alleged facts dating from August 2018, a judicial source told AFP on Thursday.
• Read also: Actress Charlotte Arnould claims to have been raped by Gérard Depardieu
The 73-year-old monument of French cinema seized the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal on this request for the nullity of his indictment concerning facts which he “totally disputes”.
The hearing on the merits was held on Thursday afternoon.
His lawyer, Me Hervé Témime, declined to comment.
The complainant, born in 1995 and aged 22 at the time of the facts, had denounced to the gendarmerie of Lambesc (Bouches-du-Rhône) at the end of August 2018 that she had been raped a few days earlier twice at the Parisian home of the star, a mansion in the 6th arrondissement.
According to a source close to the case, the actor is a friend of the victim’s family.
The legal proceedings opened in Aix-en-Provence against the French actor, also a Russian citizen since 2013, had been transferred to Paris.
A confrontation between the actor and the young actress was notably organized in the premises of the Parisian judicial police, indicated a source close to the file to AFP.
On June 4, 2019, the public prosecutor’s office had however dismissed its nine months of preliminary investigation, explaining that “the numerous investigations carried out” had “not made it possible to characterize the offenses denounced in all their constituent elements”.
The complainant then obtained the resumption of the investigation in mid-August 2020 via a complaint with civil action, an appeal which allows the quasi-automatic appointment of a judge.
A Parisian investigating judge indicted Gérard Depardieu on December 16, 2020 for “rape” and “sexual assault”, leaving him free without judicial control.
The complainant, Charlotte Arnould, spoke in mid-December on Twitter to reveal her identity.
“He works while I spend my time surviving (…) This life has escaped me for three years and I want to live without denying myself. This speech risks being a huge shock in my life, I gain absolutely nothing from it except the hope of recovering my integrity, ”she wrote.
His new lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, did not wish to react.
Since his indictment, Gérard Depardieu has been heard on the merits of the case by the investigating judge, according to sources familiar with the matter.