At the Paris Court of Justice,
Sitting in the front row near his lawyers, legs crossed, Jean-Marc Morandini looks at the ground. For almost an hour, the prosecutor, Anne Proust, has been unfolding her reasoning. For the magistrate, the 57-year-old CNews host is guilty of sexual harassment because he exerted “serious pressure” on Gabriel, a 19-year-old actor who had been chosen to play in the Web-series that the animator was producing “Les Faucons” in 2015. Objective: to obtain from the young man a blowjob. Because the defendant was “seduced”. “The solicitations are explicit and repeated,” she emphasizes. On at least three occasions, Jean-Marc Morandini tried to obtain a sexual favor from the civil party. Requests which, contrary to what he assured the day before at the helm, had nothing to do with the script of the series, but which was “purely intended to [le] satisfy”.
The prosecutor underlines the defendant’s “taste for manipulation” and observes the “gap” that exists “between the two men”. Jean-Marc Morandini is “a famous animator, who has a certain aura, who has good interpersonal skills”. Gabriel, he, “is less than 20 years old”. “He is not yet an adult, he has never been to Paris, and his eyes are shining. He is ambitious, hungry for notoriety, candid, naive. The journalist invited him one morning, before an interview, to go to the studios of Europe 1 to attend the morning show he was hosting. The young actor “is not accompanied, he comes alone”. For him, this visit to the station, “it was not just anything”, adds the magistrate. Gabriel, that day, could not believe it: Morandini rubbed shoulders with Cyril Hanouna professionally. “He understood who he was dealing with. »
An imaginary character “at the heart of the offense”
As for the imaginary character of Catherine Leclerc, “he is at the heart of the offence”, insists Anne Proust. This casting director is “her other self”. “It allows him to make requests, to be fairly believed, to be directive, to twist Gabriel’s arm without exposing the known, media person, while keeping the respectability of the public figure that is Jean-Marc Morandini. . He gave her an existence “by means of details: she is married, she has a child who is a young man of 15”.
The young actor “trusts him”. “In the end, he can no longer deny him anything. “She signs her messages” Mom “, “which is not insignificant”. Catherine Leclerc “does not rush” Gabriel “but comes back to the charge” several times concerning this story of fellatio. “It’s not to test his limits, it’s not to test his acting,” insists the magistrate. “He doesn’t want to, he resists and he says no. »
She recalls that Jean-Marc Morandini was sentenced, last December, to a one-year suspended prison sentence accompanied by a two-year care obligation and his registration in the file of perpetrators of sexual or violent offenses for facts of “corruption of minors” committed on three teenagers between 2009 and 2016. The host appealed against this conviction. But the magistrate cannot help noticing that “the facts are very similar”.
Regarding the case, which has been on trial since Wednesday, Anne Proust is requesting a six-month suspended prison sentence against the host, compensation for Gabriel, reimbursement of sums due to the public treasury, an obligation of care and a fine of 10,000 euros. Against society “Don’t skip it! production”, whose host is the sole manager, prosecuted for “concealed work”, the prosecutor requested a fine of 50,000 euros. The court’s decision will have to be disseminated by major press titles and casting sites, also claimed the prosecutor.
Fogiel’s fault
“Jean-Marc Morandini has never asked anyone to give him a blowjob or to receive it, never in his life”, assures Me Florence Rault, one of the two lawyers of the host. According to her, her client was content to question the young man “about his acting” in the context of “professional and courteous exchanges”. The defendant “is not flirting, he is seeing if one of the actors is able to shoot scenes planned in this series”, she adds.
The lawyer then tries to explain that the defendant was not under the spell of Gabriel and that he “did not try to befriend him more than that”. “He’s a very good actor, he doesn’t say anything else than that. “For Me Rault, Jean-Marc Morandini is just the victim of a plot fomented by Marc-Olivier Fogiel. “The war between the chains is very dirty, increasingly dirty,” she dares. The boss of BFM TV, we understand, would have ordered an article from “the nice journalist Inrocks to smear someone who would have been a rival.
Invited to speak after his lawyers, Jean-Marc Morandini repeated to the court that he had “never had the slightest problem” with the young man before the publication of the Inrocks article, “a command paper”. During his trial, “we only retained scattered pieces” of the exchanges he had with Gabriel. “We had a lot of discussions and they were constructive. He never “pressured” the young actor who “knew well” that he was behind the character of Catherine Leclerc. The court will deliver its decision on August 29.