The investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal had studied on February 3 the request of Gérard Depardieu, 73, to declare the nullity of his indictment for “rape”.
The Paris Court of Appeal is due to render its decision early Thursday afternoon on actor Gérard Depardieu’s request to cancel his indictment for “rape” and “sexual assault” on actress Charlotte Arnould. , alleged facts dating from August 2018.
The investigating chamber had studied on February 3 the request of the monument of French cinema, aged 73, to pronounce the nullity of its indictment concerning these facts. “I am innocent and I have nothing to fear,” he told the Italian daily La Repubblica at the end of February 2021, shortly after AFP revealed his indictment on December 16, 2020 in Paris. Before the deliberation, expected this Thursday at 1:00 p.m., neither Mr. Depardieu’s lawyer, Me Hervé Témime, nor the plaintiff’s lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, wished to comment.
The complainant Charlotte Arnould, born in 1995 and aged 22 at the time of the facts, had presented herself to the gendarmerie of Lambesc (Bouches-du-Rhône) at the end of August 2018, claiming to have been raped a few days earlier on two occasions in the Parisian home of the star, a mansion in the sixth arrondissement of Paris. The actor is a family friend of Charlotte Arnould, whom he has known since childhood.
The legal proceedings opened in Aix-en-Provence against the French actor, also a Russian citizen since 2013, had been transferred to the capital. A confrontation between the actor and the young actress had been organized in the premises of the Parisian judicial police, indicated a source close to the file to AFP.
The file for the first time classified without follow-up
On June 4, 2019, the public prosecutor’s office had however closed the file without further action after nine months of preliminary investigation, explaining that “the numerous investigations carried out” had “not made it possible to characterize the offenses denounced in all their constituent elements”.
But, in mid-August 2020, the complainant obtained the resumption of the investigation by means of a complaint with a civil action. A Parisian investigating judge indicted Gérard Depardieu in mid-December 2020 for “rape” and “sexual assault”, leaving him free without judicial control.
The complainant, Charlotte Arnould, spoke in mid-December on Twitter to reveal her identity. “He works while I spend my time surviving,” she wrote. Since his indictment, Gérard Depardieu has been heard on the merits of the case by the investigating judge, according to sources familiar with the matter. He is currently showing at the cinema in “Maigret” and “Robuste”.
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