A sentence of 20 years of criminal imprisonment was handed down on December 19 against Dominique Pelicot, for having drugged, raped and had his wife Gisèle Pelicot raped by strangers. A sentence in accordance with the requisitions.
He has admitted everything since his arrest on November 2, 2020. Dominique Pelicot was sentenced this Thursday, December 19 to 20 years of criminal imprisonment for having drugged, raped and had his wife Gisèle raped by strangers for almost ten years. A sentence in accordance with the requisitions.
The Vaucluse criminal court found him guilty of all charges. Namely, aggravated rape of Gisèle Pelicot, attempted rape and aggravated rape of the wife of a co-accused, but also the capture of images of a sexual nature concerning her daughter Caroline and her ex-daughters-in-law.
During this 15-week long trial, Dominique was described as the “keystone”, the “conductor” of a criminal scheme which consisted of putting his wife to sleep with Temesta, an anxiolytic, before raping her at a hundred times. The man, then settled in Mazan (Vaucluse) for his retirement, will also recruit men on the site – since closed – Coco.gg. He was also on trial for the rape of the wife of one of his co-defendants, Jean-Pierre M.
“I maintain that I am a rapist like everyone else in this room,” the septuagenarian declared on September 17 during his first hearing before the court.
Motivations still unclear
For a few days, the trial was suspended due to the state of health of the septuagenarian, hospitalized to treat a urinary infection, a blood clot in the bladder and a prostate problem. Once the accused recovered, the Vaucluse criminal court ordered adjustments, starting with the replacement of the wooden bench on which he was sitting with a more comfortable chair.
Throughout the instruction and debates, Dominique Pelicot admitted the facts. The Vaucluse criminal court, but also Gisèle Pelicot who faced her ex-husband, sought the motivations of the accused. Dominique Pelicot will only say that he wanted to “subdue a rebellious woman”. The septuagenarian will also evoke his childhood as the starting point of his perversity.
Mazan rapes: Gisèle Pelicot, the woman who wants to “change society”
A childhood marked by “trauma”
On the stand, he spoke of his incestuous father, his violent mother, then a rape he suffered at the age of nine during hospitalization and another rape in which he was forced to participate at the age 14 years old on a construction site. “We are not born like that, we become it,” he said on the stand to justify himself. He assures him that he held on for 40 years, but “it was too heavy to carry”.
“We can’t say that my life hasn’t been influenced by that. Side A and side B, it’s the same man, but with addictions,” he added, calling himself “selfish.”
Experts described him as a “manipulative pervert” devoured by “obsessive fantasies”, “with zero empathy”, the septuagenarian having “a propensity to consider others as objects”. What Dominique Pelicot had defended himself from.
A “manipulator”
Throughout the hearing, his co-defendants portrayed him as a “manipulator”, claiming to have been duped by him. “The ogre of Mazan”, “the wolf of Ventoux”, “the monster”, “the minotaur, half-man half-bull, symbol of the man devoured by his impulses”, a “chameleon” or an “eel “, “maker of rapists”, “Machiavelli”… There were numerous qualifiers used to describe the man who invited men to his home in Mazan to have his wife raped.
“I didn’t lie to them, they knew very well. They were receptive to my request. The men who came to my house did not come by chance,” he always maintained.
His last words were for his ex-wife Gisèle and his family. “I regret what I did, making her suffer for four years, I ask them for forgiveness,” he said.
Other ongoing legal cases
There remain gray areas in this trial. Dominique Pelicot was also tried for having taken naked photos of his two ex-daughters-in-law and his daughter Caroline. The latter is convinced that her father also abused her after putting her to sleep.
Caroline Darian’s doubts gave rise to numerous face-to-face meetings with the man she now calls her “progenitor”. “I never touched you Caroline,” he insisted each time he was questioned about possible incest on his daughter or his grandchildren.
This conviction does not mark the end of Dominique Pelicot’s legal troubles. The Nanterre cold cases unit indicted him for two cases, a rape followed by a murder in 1991, in Paris, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999 in Seine-et-Marne, which he admits, having been confused by his DNA. He could be tried for these facts. Dominique Pelicot has ten days to appeal the decision.
