French actor Gerard Depardieu is charged with “rape”

French actor Gerard Depardieu, a 72-year-old giant of French cinema, was charged on December 16 with “rape” and “sexual assaults” in the summer of 2018 against a young actress, which he denies, according to a source familiar with the file and confirmed by a judicial source,

The plaintiff had informed the police at the end of August 2018 that she had been raped twice at the actor’s house in Paris a few days earlier, and in the summer of 2020 it had been decided that an investigating judge would release the case again after the public prosecutor in Paris preserved it without prosecution.

A lawyer for the actor Herve Tamim regretted, in a call with Agence France-Presse, “that this information was made public.”

The lawyer asserted that Depardieu, who was left free but placed under judicial supervision, “completely denies what he is being accused of.”

At the end of August, the young actress accused the actor of raping her twice and sexually assaulting his Parisian home on the seventh and thirteenth of August 2018.

A source familiar with the file said that the actor is a friend of the victim’s family. The same source emphasized that “it is not related to a professional matter at all,” while newspapers reported training on a play.

On June 4, 2019, the Public Prosecution office closed the case without prosecution, after an investigation that lasted for nine months.

A confrontation took place between the star and the young actress at the headquarters of the Judicial Police in Paris, according to the source familiar with the file and Agence France-Presse.

In mid-August 2020, the plaintiff obtained the resumption of the investigation through a civil right complaint, which allows the appointment of a judge automatically to resume investigations.

The attorney for the plaintiff, Elodie Toyon-Ebon, requested that “her client’s privacy be respected.”