Lhe legal concerns are piling up for Jean-Marc Morandini. The television host, already sent back to correctional for “corruption of a minor”, will also be tried for “sexual harassment” and “hidden work” in another case, said a source familiar with the matter, confirming information from BFMTV published on Monday January 3.
In an order dated December 23, the investigating judge in charge of the investigations ordered the referral of Jean-Marc Morandini to the Paris Criminal Court for “sexual harassment” against a complainant, and that of his company production Do not Zap! Production for “covert work” against five complainants. The magistrate, on the other hand, ordered dismissals for “sexual harassment” against four other complainants. “There had been classification without action of five complaints, there is a dismissal for four of the five”, underlined Me Céline Lasek, lawyer for the host. Regarding the fifth, “(Jean-Marc) Morandini will demonstrate that he did not commit harassment in court,” she added.
Resumption of investigations in 2018
In July 2016 in Les Inrockuptibles, two young actors accused Jean-Marc Morandini, now 56 years old, of having taken advantage of the castings made for an erotic web-series called The Falcons to encourage them to show off naked. According to their testimonies, a person posing as “Catherine Leclerc”, in reality Jean-Marc Morandini under a pseudonym, had urged them by email to send videos of them naked and scenes of masturbation. In total, five actors had lodged a complaint for “sexual harassment”. They had also denounced acts of “hidden work”, the production company not having declared the actors to social organizations.
Seized of this complaint, the Paris prosecutor’s office had closed its investigation in December 2016. But the complainants had obtained in 2018 the resumption of the investigations by an examining magistrate. In another case, Jean-Marc Morandini, host on CNews and NRJ12, was referred in July 2020 to the criminal court for “corruption of a minor” with regard to two plaintiffs.