the Court of Cassation validates the dismissal of the case in favor of Gérald Darmanin

The Court of Cassation dismissed, on Wednesday February 14, the appeal filed by Sophie Patterson-Spatz after the dismissal of the case, confirmed on appeal, rendered in favor of Gérald Darmanin whom she accuses of rape, which he contests. During the non-public hearing before the highest judicial court on February 17, both the rapporteur and the advocate general concluded that the complainant’s appeal was rejected. LThe Minister of the Interior is now definitively exonerated.

Sophie Patterson-Spatz, 52, has accused Gérald Darmanin of raping her in 2009 since spring 2017. At the time, she contacted him as a project manager in the legal affairs department of the UMP (now LR), to obtain support in the review of a conviction in 2005 for blackmail and malicious calls against a former companion. According to her, Gérald Darmanin had dangled his possible support to her during an evening in Paris via a letter to the Chancellery, and had asked for a sexual relationship in exchange. Both admit to having had sexual intercourse.

But Sophie Patterson-Spatz believes she was forced to “put in the pan” when Gérald Darmanin, then aged 26, told him: “you too will have to help me.” For his lawyer, it is a “surprise rape” and sexual intercourse “extorted”, “neither free nor consented”. For his part, the Minister of the Interior had affirmed during the procedure that he had “given in to the charms” of a complainant “enterprising”.