A Parisian investigating judge on Friday ordered a dismissal in favor of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
A Parisian investigating judge on Friday ordered a dismissal in favor of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, accused of rape since 2017, AFP learned on Monday from his lawyers Mathias Chichportich and Pierre-Olivier Sur. A judicial source confirmed to AFP this decision, announced by BFMTV, which closes this very politically sensitive file in which the complainant Sophie Patterson-Spatz accused the Beauvau tenant of rape, sexual harassment and breach of trust for facts which would have occurred in Paris in 2009.
Ms. Patterson-Spatz had on February 28, 2018 seized an investigating judge with a complaint with civil action. This approach followed the classification decided by the prosecution after a preliminary investigation during which the minister had been heard, without being confronted with his accuser. Six months later, the magistrate had issued “an order of dismissal to inform”, considering that in view of these investigations, the alleged facts were not established and that there was no need to open judicial information. The appeal filed by the complainant had been considered too late by the Court of Appeal in October 2018. In November 2019, the Court of Cassation had then ordered the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal to re-examine the validity of the dismissal.
Gérald Darmanin is accused by this woman of having raped her in 2009. At the time, she had contacted the elected official, then project manager in the legal affairs department of the UMP, to try to have a 2004 conviction for blackmail and malicious calls against an ex-boyfriend. According to her, Gérald Darmanin would have dangled his support from the Chancellery, in exchange for sexual favors.