The Paris prosecutor’s office has requested a trial for rape by a person having authority before the departmental criminal court against lawyer Alex Ursulet, who disputes the charges, we learned this Saturday from a source close to the case.
Former associate of Jacques Vergès and defender of serial killer Guy Georges, Me Ursulet is accused of rape by a young lawyer, aged just over 20 at the time of the events, which allegedly occurred in January 2018. The latter was carrying out then an internship in the Paris office of Me Ursulet, as part of his training.
The decision in the hands of an examining magistrate
In its final indictment dated Thursday, the prosecution requests that the 63-year-old lawyer be tried by the Paris departmental criminal court, made up of professional magistrates and without popular jurors.
It is now up to the investigating judge in charge of the investigations to order this trial or not. Asked, his defense did not react immediately.
The complainant accuses the criminal lawyer of having imposed digital vaginal penetrations on her while they were alone in her office. After this episode, she ended her internship.
“There are enough elements to establish the reality of the rape”
First placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness, Alex Ursulet was finally indicted in November 2021. At the time, one of his lawyers, Me Marie Burguburu, considered that “nothing” justified this indictment and asserted that there were “innumerable contradictions and impossibilities”.
For the public prosecutor, “there are enough elements to establish the reality of the rape” denounced by the complainant who “at each stage of the procedure”, “delivered a coherent version of the facts”.
“She described, without contradicting herself, the process at the end of which, after having been initially impressed by the professional stature and personality of Alex Ursulet, 36 years her senior and a professional with a well-established reputation, while she herself was looking for an internship, she was then destabilized by the changes in attitude of the accused towards her, the latter oscillating between seduction, bullying and domination, to end up feeling locked in a trap from which she could not escape, ”estimates the prosecution.
Removed from the Paris Bar in 2019
“This is one more step in the direction of what my client has been denouncing for four years, the path is still long but we are approaching it calmly”, commented to AFP Me Thibault Laforcade, lawyer for the complainant. .
Me Ursulet had been struck off the Paris Bar at the end of December 2019 by the Council of the Order before appealing this decision, which allowed him to continue to practice.
The Paris Court of Appeal decided in April 2022 to await the outcome of the criminal proceedings for rape targeting him before deciding on his removal from the bar.