GÉrard Depardieu will indeed continue to be indicted for “rape” and “sexual assault”, announced Thursday, March 10, the Attorney General of Paris, Rémy Heitz. Questioned by the young actress Charlotte Arnould, the French actor had demanded the lifting of this status, believing that the evidence against him did not exist.
In his press release, Rémy Heitz writes on the contrary that “the investigating chamber thus considers that there are, at this stage, serious or concordant indications which justify that Gérard Depardieu remains indicted”. The facts mentioned by Charlotte Arnould date back to the summer of 2018.
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The monument of French cinema, 73 years old, had asked in a request of May 2021 that the nullity of his indictment concerning these facts be pronounced. The investigating chamber had studied during a hearing on February 3 this request, which was opposed by the general prosecutor’s office of the Paris Court of Appeal. “The file now returns” to the investigating judge “for further judicial information”, added Rémy Heitz.
“I do not wish to comment,” said Charlotte Arnould, present at the Court of Appeal at the time of the deliberations, obviously moved and accompanied by a relative. “My client is particularly relieved and confident about the justice that has been rendered today,” reacted to AFP his lawyer, Ms.e Carine Durrieu-Diebolt. “It is important to note that currently all the magistrates in charge of the file”, whether it is the investigating judge or the court of appeal, “believe that there are serious or concordant indications which suggest that Gérard Depardieu did indeed commit the acts of sexual assault and rape of which he is accused, ”added the lawyer.
Solicited by AFP, the comedian’s lawyer, Me Hervé Temime, did not wish to react. The case began in the summer of 2018. The complainant Charlotte Arnould, born in 1995 and aged 22 at the time of the events, had presented herself to the gendarmerie of Lambesc (Bouches-du-Rhône) at the end of August 2018, claiming having been raped a few days earlier twice at the star’s Parisian home, a private mansion on 6e district of Paris. After numerous legal disputes, a Parisian investigating judge indicted Gérard Depardieu on December 16, 2020 for “rape” and “sexual assault”, leaving him free without judicial control. “I am innocent and I have nothing to fear,” Gérard Depardieu told the Italian daily. The Republic at the end of February 2021, shortly after the revelation by AFP of this questioning.