After the accusations, the explanations. YouTuber Léo Grasset, accused by three women of rape, was taken into custody on Tuesday in Paris and then released without prosecution at this stage, a police source and the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP on Wednesday.
Summoned on Tuesday to be heard by the police, Léo Grasset, known for his popular science videos on his channel “DirtyBiology”, was released on Tuesday evening without prosecution or summons at this stage, said the prosecution, which confirmed information from Parisian.
Three accusers
This police custody is part of an investigation into rape opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office in November 2022, following a first complaint denouncing facts dating back to November 2021 that Médiapart revealed. There are now three complainants accusing the influencer, aged 33, of having raped them between 2017 and 2021.
One of the accusers was a journalism student at the time of the alleged events. She claims to have woken up after an alcoholic evening in Léo Grasset’s hotel room “feeling fingers in [son] sex in the middle of the night” and being “paralyzed”. At this point, the YouTuber allegedly told her to “relax” and began to penetrate her. She says she remained “still and silent”.
Denial on YouTube
“I have a sometimes messy love life, and I also sometimes make stupid jokes, however the article paints a portrait of me which is dishonest; he constructs a toxic character with insinuations and truncated quotes,” Grasset responded on his YouTube channel, “firmly contesting” the accusations.
“We note the lifting of our client’s police custody, released without prosecution. We calmly await the rest of the procedure,” his lawyers Mes Camille Loyer and Fares Aidel told AFP.
The investigations, entrusted to the 3rd district of the judicial police, are continuing. “The statements of each person will be studied,” said the prosecution.