He was indicted in October 2022 after complaints from a former employee of the Dessange group, who accused him of malicious telephone calls, intentional violence and sexual harassment. Benjamin Dessange, youngest son of the world-famous French hairdresser Jacques Dessange, died on Tuesday, November 5, at the age of 57, the Dessange International group confirmed to AFP this Thursday, November 8.
Benjamin Dessange, whose father died in 2020, was soon to be tried at the Paris judicial court for “aggravated sexual harassment”. He “left the company in 2018 and was no longer part of it, either as a shareholder or as an employee,” the group said. He was found dead on Tuesday November 5 at his home in Porto-Vecchio, Corsica.
A former employee of the Dessange group, Annabel Talon, filed a complaint against the heir to the hairdresser to the stars, in 2014, then in 2015. She accused him of malicious telephone calls, intentional violence and sexual harassment, saying that from in 2011, the man who had become president of Dessange International had adopted “an inappropriate attitude” towards him. And this for two years, until she left the group as part of a conventional breakup.
Benjamin Dessange was indicted in October 2022. On April 8, an investigating judge ordered a trial before the criminal court, based in particular on around fifty SMS messages sent to him by Benjamin Dessange, sometimes of a nature sexual, and testimonies from personal and professional entourage reporting inappropriate behavior towards her. “We dispute the facts. This person has been pursuing Benjamin Dessange with his hatred for fifteen years,” his lawyer, Me Richard Koplewicz, declared in April, contacted by AFP.
The judge retained the aggravating circumstance of abuse of authority, due to the hierarchical relationship and the right of oversight that Benjamin Dessange had over the complainant's work. Summoned in 2018, Benjamin Dessange denied the facts and claimed that he had a consensual sexual relationship with the complainant, which the latter disputes.
“She had a lot of contact with my father and my father created a vendetta,” Benjamin Dessange, who had notoriously difficult relations with his father since 2008, declared during his interrogation in 2022. An unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, according to the conclusions of the investigating magistrate
