“Envoyé spécial” obtained an audio message in which the complainant recounts her night with the two players.

What exactly happened in Mendoza, Argentina, on the night of July 6-7? Two players from the French rugby team, two rising stars, were indicted for gang rape: Hugo Auradou, 20 at the time of the events, a player at the Pau club, and Oscar Jegou, 21, from Stade Rochelais. The woman who accuses them received the journalists from “Envoyé spécial” at her parents’ home, where she has been living since the affair.

In this excerpt from the report broadcast on September 12, 2024, Soledad, 39, returns to certain elements that, for the Argentinian judges as well as for the players’ lawyers, weaken her version. These are in particular the video surveillance images that show her leaving, in the morning, room 603 of the Diplomatic hotel where the events she denounces allegedly took place. We see the young woman taking a few steps, stretching and redoing her ponytail. An attitude that is insufficiently convincing, according to the Argentine justice system, to support an accusation of rape. In front of the cameras of “Envoyé spécial”, Soledad explains it by the “relief [qu’elle a ressenti] after the ordeal [qu’elle avait] endured”. “The last thing I wanted to do, she adds, It was a scandal in the hotel reception.”

The assistant coach of the French rugby team, Patrick Arlettaz, who meets her in the elevator, told investigators that he did not notice anything abnormal. The same goes for the VTC driver who took Soledad back to her parents’ home in the suburbs. On the other hand, when her father meets her when he wakes up in the afternoon, he is shocked by the marks on his daughter’s body, “the black eye, chin and breasts”. He specifies that she “took a lot of sedatives, because what she had just been through was very traumatic.”and adds that he himself has not “no economic interest in saying that” : Soledad comes from a family of lawyers and jurists, where nothing is lacking.

There is also this audio extract on which the rugby players’ defense relies. It is sent by Soledad to the friend who accompanied her the day before to the nightclub where she met Hugo Auradou. She tells him that she has “rmet a French rugby player, super tall guy, too handsome”. “Always the same story, she continues. As soon as I go out, I take advantage of it…”

But the rest of the message, which “Envoyé spécial” obtained, is of a completely different nature. Soledad continues to tell the story of the night she spent with the player, who was later joined by Oscar Jegou who shared her room. “He grabbed my cheek, and left a bruise on my face and jaw, on my neck, scratches on my back…”

During the twenty or so audio messages that the two women exchanged during the evening, it was her friend who made Soledad understand the seriousness of what she was describing to her. “If you told them you wanted to leave, and the guy punched you in the face, grabbed your neck, hit you, and then another guy came into the room without your consent, when you wanted to leave, that’s rape.”

After filing a complaint that evening, Soledad went to the hospital to have her marks checked by a medical examiner. In his report, he noted fifteen bruises (including hematomas on an eyelid and a breast) on her body.

Excerpt from “Third half: rugby offside?, a report broadcast in “Special Envoy” on September 12, 2024.

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