The Paris prosecutor’s office requested on August 14 that Gérard Depardieu be tried before a criminal court for rape and sexual assault on actress Charlotte Arnould, we learned on Thursday from a source close to the case and the prosecutor’s office, confirming information from BFMTV television.
The 75-year-old French cinema giant was indicted on December 16, 2020 following a complaint from the actress who accuses him of two rapes committed on August 7 and 13, 2018 at the actor’s Parisian home.
It is now up to the investigating judge in charge of this case to decide whether or not to order a trial.
Contacted, one of Mr. Depardieu’s lawyers did not immediately respond to AFP.
These requests from the prosecution “are the result of a long investigation which allowed the gathering of elements which corroborate my client’s words”, M.e Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, Charlotte Arnould’s lawyer.
“For her, it is a huge step forward full of hope while waiting for the order of the investigating judge which will close the investigation,” she added.
The actor, accused by other women of sexual violence, denies the accusations. “Never, ever, have I abused a woman,” he said in October 2023 in the daily newspaper The Figaroreferring to the accusations of Charlotte Arnould.
The actress, now 28 years old, “had initially filed a complaint in August 2018 in a gendarmerie in the south of France, then the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor’s office relinquished jurisdiction in favor of the Paris prosecutor’s office, which has territorial jurisdiction,” recalled the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Following investigations carried out by the judicial police, “the procedure was closed on the grounds that the facts appeared insufficiently characterised” in June 2019, he added.
Charlotte Arnould then filed a complaint with civil action on March 10, 2020 in Paris with the senior investigating judge.
“After reviewing the procedure, the Paris prosecutor’s office requested on July 31, 2020 the opening of a judicial investigation for rape,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
In addition, Gérard Depardieu will be tried before the Paris Criminal Court in October for sexual assaults allegedly committed on two women during the filming of the film by French director Jean Becker, The green shuttersin 2021.