The video that will complicate the defense of Gérald Marie, the former boss of Elite accused of rape

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Nice, September 3, 2001. Gérald Marie poses in the middle of young women who participate in the Elite Model Look contest. – PASCAL GUYOT / AFP

  • Last September, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation for several sexual assaults and rapes, including some on minors, targeting Gerald Marie, a former model agent.
  • According to our information, nine women in total have reported facts to the French courts. Including Lisa Brinkworth, a journalist who passed herself off as a model in the 1990s, in order to approach Gerald Marie, then boss of the Elite agency.
  • Last Sunday, the Australian program “60 Minutes” broadcast a video archive dating from 1998 which supports the story of the young woman and complicates the defense of the accused.

Sitting in a hotel room in Milan (Italy), the young woman seems so shaken that she cannot fix the camera lens. While it is however his job… “It was just terrifying… What I just suffered, it was uh… It was the closest thing to a rape…”, she finally blurted out. Aired last Sunday by the Australian channel Channel Nine in
the show 60 minutes, this short sequence dates from October 1998. But, nearly twenty-five years later, it could complicate the defense of Gerald Marie.

Former European boss of the Elite modeling agency, this now 71-year-old man has been the target, since September 2020, by a preliminary investigation for several sexual assaults and rapes, including some on a minor, such as 20 minutes revealed it at the time. Today, according to our information, nine women in total have reported facts to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

An undercover journalist to approach Gérald Marie

Including Lisa Brinkworth, the young woman whose testimony was therefore broadcast by Australian television. Unlike the other complainants, she is not a model, but a journalist. At the material time, she was investigating on behalf of the BBC into the suspicions weighing on Gerald Marie. And, to approach the one who popularized the “Elite Model Look” competition, she had passed herself off as a model. To the point, according to her, of being herself the victim of a sexual assault during a party in a restaurant in Milan.

That evening, according to his story, Gerald Marie first offered her the equivalent of 500 euros to sleep with her. He then “immobilized her, sitting astride” her, before faking a sexual act while he was erect.

British journalist Lisa Brinkworth in 1998 and today. – Lisa Brinkworth

“Encourage other victims to speak up”

Covering a period from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, the facts denounced by these women are very old and all seem today struck by prescription. Except that the short video sequence broadcast on Sunday could be a game-changer …

Lisa Brinkworth indeed claims to have been pressured to pass over her assault in silence. “I was deprived of the possibility of reporting this attack to the French authorities at the time,” she explains to 20 minutes. Colleagues from the BBC ordered me not to lodge a complaint because that would have jeopardized the undercover investigation we were carrying out… ”

According to Anne-Claire Le Jeune, her lawyer, Lisa Brinkworth was therefore “unable to have access to the evidence allowing her to denounce the facts”. Which is no longer the case today. “We will obviously report the broadcast of this video to the Paris prosecutor’s office,” she says. I don’t know if that will be enough to blow up the limitation periods. But it is still an important material element. And maybe that will encourage other victims to speak up. Other victims for whom the facts may not be prescribed. The movement seems to have started since the lawyer indicates that she has already received the testimonies of twenty young women.

The complainants will be heard from July

According to our information, the brigade for the protection of minors, to which the investigation was entrusted, should also hear from July some of these complainants who could not be heard so far, because of the health conditions linked to the coronavirus epidemic.

For his part, Gérald Marie made it known through his lawyer that he formally challenged the accusations to which he was the subject. Still active in modeling last fall, he now seems to be enjoying a peaceful retirement in Ibiza (Spain), where he has owned a house since the 1980s. Contacted by 20 minutes, he did not respond to our requests.

If you have witnessed or been the victim of abuse in the fashion or modeling world and wish to testify, you can contact our journalists at [email protected] and [email protected]



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