The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday, the actor being the subject of a complaint for facts dating from August 2018.
The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed on Thursday March 10 the indictment of Gérard Depardieu for “rapes” and “sexual assault” on complaint of the actress Charlotte Arnould, indicated the attorney general of Paris, Rémy Heitz, in a press release.
“The investigating chamber thus considers that there are, at this stage, serious or concordant indications which justify that Gérard Depardieu remains under investigation.“, for these facts dating from August 2018, said Rémy Heitz.
Back to the facts: the plaintiff Charlotte Arnould, born in 1995 and 22 years old at the time of the events, had presented herself to the gendarmerie of Lambesc in the Bouches-du-Rhône at the end of August 2018, claiming to have been raped a few days earlier twice at the Parisian home of the star , a mansion in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.
The actor is said to be a family friend of the alleged victim. The legal proceedings opened in Aix-en-Provence against the French actor, also a Russian citizen since 2013, had been transferred to the capital. A confrontation between the actor and the young actress was organized in the premises of the Parisian judicial police, indicated a source close to the file to AFP.
Classification without follow-up then resumption of the investigation
On June 4, 2019, however, the public prosecutor closed the case without further action after nine months of preliminary investigation, explaining that “the numerous investigations carried out” had “not allowed to characterize the offenses denounced in all their constituent elements“. But, in mid-August 2020, the complainant obtained the resumption of the investigation by means of a complaint with a civil action.
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“, she wrote. 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.
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