He is “the keystone” of this matter “out of the norm”. At the Mazan rape trial, the prosecution requested, Monday, November 25, twenty years of criminal imprisonment, the maximum sentence, against Dominique Pelicot, for having, between July 2011 and October 2020, drugged, raped and had his wife raped by dozens of men recruited on the internet. “I will ask you to declare Dominique Pelicot guilty of all the facts with which he is accused”declared General Counsel Laure Chabaud, in a packed courtroom.
“Twenty years is a lot at the same time, because twenty years of a man's life is not nothing, and twenty years of living within the four walls of a prison is not Nothingshe continued. Twenty years is both a lot and too little considering the seriousness of the acts committed and repeated.“
The prosecution also required ten years of socio-judicial monitoring accompanied by a treatment order. He asked to this that at the end of his sentence, Dominique Pelicot “be subject to re-examination, with a view to a possible detention measure”. Three aggravating circumstances were retained: that he committed and organized these rapes in his capacity as the victim's spouse, that these facts took place in a meeting, and that the victim was under the influence of chemical submission. For nearly a decade, Dominique Pelicot drugged his wife Gisèle by hiding anxiolytic pills in her food.
For the general counsel, “acting out” by Dominique Pelicot “cannot be dissociated from the study of [sa] personality”recalling that his sexuality is “marked by multiple deviances”. The man is “structured in a perverse way”women are in his eyes “dehumanized, reduced to the state of an object”. The expert psychiatrist Paul Bensussan reported on his functioning “very pathological, with archaic defense mechanisms, driven by splitting and denial”. The magistrate, however, recalled that the septuagenarian does not suffer from any mental pathology.
She stressed that individuals, in criminal history, were able to “show themselves to be absolutely charming and, at the same time, capable of the worst atrocities”. In his eyes, Dominique Pelicot responds to this scenario: “He was a caring husband, an affectionate father, but who consciously inflicted on his wife, and his entire family, unspeakable suffering through acts denying all humanity to his victim.”
It was hosted by “the search for one's own pleasure” who passed through “a desire for submission from his wife, even debasement” of it. Laure Chabaud notably called out the filthy remarks made by Dominique Pelicot concerning her in the numerous videos which could be viewed at the hearing.
“To 'subdue a rebellious woman', in his own words, Dominique Pelicot opted for chemical submission.”
Laure Chabaud, deputy prosecutorbefore the Vaucluse criminal court
The magistrate recalled that the accused had received around twenty medication prescriptions, notably for Temesta “in its most measured form”from which he had been issued a total of “780 tablets”but also Zolpidem, a powerful sleeping pill of which significant traces were found in the victim's hair.
She recalled the state of “confusion” and the many “absences” of Gisèle Pelicot due to this ingestion of medication, in doses such that they could have caused “son pronostic vital”as a toxicology expert pointed out during the trial. Gisèle Pelicot was the victim of a car accident under the effects of these pills.
Beyond the multiple rapes inflicted on his ex-wife and the chemical submission, the vice-prosecutor also requested that Dominique Pelicot be found guilty of having taken and distributed multiple intimate photographs of Gisèle Pelicot but also of her step-daughters. girls, whom he photographed naked in their bathroom, before making pornographic photomontages. “No limits seem to work for Dominique Pelicot who goes so far as to write: 'I am surrounded by beautiful sluts'”reported Laure Chabaud.
She also focused on the two photographs of her naked daughter Caroline Darian, which were registered under the name “My naked girl”. “Caroline is convinced that she too was drugged by her father, to the extent that she never sleeps in this position, that she should have been awakened by a light in the room and that the panties worn were not hers”, reported the general counsel. She recalled that on these facts, Dominique Pelicot adopted “an unusual position”since “These are the only ones he disputes, going so far as to say that he is not sure if it is her in the images.” And ensuring “that he did not remember it, as if one could forget such facts“.
Laure Chabaud, however, observed that no element was discovered allowing “find a legal translation” to “suffering” by Caroline Darian. The one that the latter now designates as her “genitor”and whom she insulted several times at the hearing, is therefore not being prosecuted for rape of her daughter, but only for “violation of privacy by recording and fixing images of a sexual nature”.
Dominique Pelicot's lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, described her client as “shot down”. “We were preparing for the maximum sentence to be requested, there is no surprise”she nevertheless admitted. It remains to be seen what sentences the prosecution will seek against the 50 co-defendants.
A single requisition fell on Tuesday morning, concerning Jean-Pierre M., a special case among the accused, since he is not accused of having raped Gisèle Pelicot, but prosecuted for having raped and had his own wife raped, with the complicity of Dominique Pelicot. The public prosecutor requested 17 years of criminal imprisonment against him. In total, the two men had “around ten meetings over around ten years”noted the Advocate General, Jean-François Mayet, considering that Jean-Pierre M. “had sufficient time to realize what was happening”.
The other requisitions will last until Tuesday evening, or even Wednesday noon. The prosecution should differentiate between repeat offenders – four men came six times and six came twice – and the accused who came only once to Mazan. “We can no longer, in 2024, consider that, because she said nothing, that she agreed,” warned Laure Chabaud, while most of the accused claimed not to have understood that the victim did not consent. “There was nothing ambiguous, neither in the context, nor in the attitude of Gisèle Pelicot, which could lead these men to believe that she agreed to undergo these sexual acts in the lethargic state which was his”she told the vice-prosecutor.
