The former vice-president of the French Tennis Federation (FFT), Jean-Pierre Dartevelle, will be tried from February 11 to 13 before the Doubs criminal court for rape of a player, who denounced a “control relationship”. He faces fifteen years of criminal imprisonment.
The 74-year-old man is being prosecuted for rapes committed between 2016 and 2018, when the victim was between 17 and 19 years old. The young woman being a minor at the time of certain events, she can request, if she wishes, that the trial be held behind closed doors.
During the investigation, Mr. Dartevelle, also former president of the Franche-Comté Tennis League, did not contest the sexual relations, but he maintained that it was a “totally consensual relationship”reported a judicial source to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“He does not understand what he is accused of. For him, it was a romantic relationship that lasted two years”declared, in March 2023, his lawyer, Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, when announcing his referral to the criminal court. “For me, given the case, this referral to a trial hearing is more about morality than law”she added.
The FFT civil party
A talented player who aimed for a professional career before being overtaken by health problems, the young woman had denounced acts of rape in 2018, describing a relationship ” constraint “while she was the victim of “the influence” of this man very close to his parents in the tennis world.
-Placed under judicial supervision, Mr. Dartevelle initially appealed his indictment order before the Doubs criminal court, before withdrawing. In February 2017, the former president of the Franche-Comté Tennis League was narrowly beaten by Bernard Giudicelli for the presidency of the FFT.
This high-level ex-footballer, who played a dozen matches in the first division with Sochaux at the end of the 1970s, was also a dentist in Montbéliard and a regional councilor, under the Les Républicains label, of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. during the previous mandate.
The FFT became a civil party to the trial, alongside the player and her family.
