Benjamin Mendy was charged with an additional rape when he appeared before an English court on Wednesday. With this new charge added by the Crown Court of Chester in the west of England, the defender is now targeted by seven counts of rape and one of sexual assault, on four women.
French Manchester City defender Benjamin Mendy, 27, has been charged with an additional rape, it was learned when he appeared before an English court on Wednesday. World champion in 2018, Benjamin Mendy is now targeted by seven counts of rape on four women and one count of sexual assault on a fifth. This seventh charge of rape concerns a new complainant, for acts which allegedly took place in July of this year. The previous facts with which he was accused extended between October 2020 and August 2021.
Still in pre-trial detention
In pre-trial detention since the end of August, the footballer appeared Wednesday for 40 minutes in front of the Crown Court of Chester (north-west of England). At the same hearing, another man, Louis Saha Matturie, 40, unrelated to former footballer Louis Saha and whose ties to Mendy are not clearly established, also appeared. He is also being prosecuted for six rapes and one sexual assault between March and August 2021. The two men were remanded in custody in a Liverpool prison awaiting trial, postponed Wednesday sine die after being initially scheduled for January 24.
Trained in Le Havre, revealed in Marseille and spent a season with Monaco, Mendy had become the most expensive defender in history in 2017 when the Citizens did not hesitate to pay 52 million pounds (about 60 million euros) to secure its services. When he arrived at City, where he had a year and a half left on his contract, he was considered one of the great French and world hopes as left-back. But the career of the now 27-year-old player has been hampered for four years by injuries, before being hampered by this legal process.