He is now definitively exonerated by the French justice system in this case. The Court of Cassation rejected, on Wednesday February 14, the appeal filed by Sophie Patterson-Spatz against Gérald Darmanin, whom she accuses of rape, confirming the dismissal of the case which had been decided by an investigating judge in this case in July 2022.
During the non-public hearing before the highest judicial court, both the rapporteur and the advocate general concluded that the complainant’s appeal was rejected. The complainant had appealed to the Court of Cassation in the hope that it would order a new hearing in the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal to examine the dismissal of the case rendered in July 2022 in favor of Gérald Darmanin .
“This decision marks the end of a procedure which has lasted for seven years for facts which allegedly date back almost fifteen years”Mr. Darmanin’s lawyers, Mathias Chichportich and Pierre-Olivier Sur, reacted in a press release. “For the sixth time, justice affirms that no wrongdoing can be blamed on Mr. Gérald Darmanin”they added.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon, told Agence France-Presse before the hearing that “Mme Patterson waits[ait] of our highest court that the question of consent is finally treated as a question of law, and not simply as a question “of fact””.
No indictment and trial
Sophie Patterson-Spatz, 52, has accused Mr. Darmanin of raping her in 2009 since spring 2017. At the time, she had contacted him as a project manager in the legal affairs department of the UMP (now Les Républicains), to obtain support in the review of a conviction in 2005 for blackmail and malicious calls against a former companion.
According to her, Mr. Darmanin had dangled his possible support to her during an evening in Paris via a letter to the chancellery, and had asked for a sexual relationship in exchange. Both admit to having had sexual intercourse. But Sophie Patterson-Spatz believes she was forced to “put in the pan” when Mr. Darmanin, then aged 26, said to him: “You too will have to help me”. For meme Tuaillon-Hibon, it is a “surprise rape” and sexual intercourse “extorted”, “neither free nor consented”.
The Minister of the Interior claimed during the procedure to have “given in to the charms” of a complainant “enterprising”. After investigations closed three times, Mme Patterson-Spatz obtained the appointment of an investigating judge in the summer of 2020.
Mr. Darmanin was not indicted and benefited from a dismissal of the case in July 2022, confirmed by the Paris Court of Appeal in January 2023. The complainant then filed this appeal. The accusations made against the minister, in office since 2017, contributed to many feminist associations regularly calling for the resignation of Gérald Darmanin.