17 years in prison required against Jean-Pierre M., this accused with a unique profile

JUSTICE – A separate case among the fifty defendants present. After requesting the maximum sentence against Dominique Pelicot at the Mazan rape trial, the prosecution looked into the case of Jean-Pierre M., presented as the emulator of Gisèle Pelicot's ex-husband.

This Monday, November 25, in Avignon, the public prosecutor requested a sentence of 17 years of imprisonment against this man, the only accused among the 51 in the case not to be prosecuted for sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot but on his own wife.

“This sentence could be accompanied by socio-judicial monitoring for a period of five years with additional care”added Jean-François Mayet, one of the two attorneys general representing the public prosecutor before the Vaucluse criminal court.

Emboldened, even manipulated, by Dominique Pelicot, eight years his senior, Jean-Pierre M. had imitated Gisèle Pelicot's chemical submission protocol on his own partner. He drugged her with the same anxiolytic, supplied by the one he had met on the Coco.fr website. Then he raped her and had her raped by him. Thus, between 2016 and 2020, around ten rapes were recorded against the wife of Jean-Pierre M. by her husband and Dominique Pelicot.

However, fearing for the health of his wife, who was small, the 63-year-old accused did not “loaded the dose” anxiolytics. And during the last incident of rape, she woke up before running behind Dominique Pelicot. “I ask my husband what’s going on. He says it's to see my underwear and then he gets caught in his lies”had explained during his hearing at the bar Cilia M., his wife, who did not file a complaint to preserve “their five children”.

A sentence « excessive » for defense

“The aggravating circumstances retained are the status of spouse, the meeting and the administration of a chemical substance”therefore argued Jean-François Mayet, for whom he “is very clear that it was rape, it is indisputable”.

Requisitions which caused an outcry from Patrick Gontard, Jean-Pierre M.'s lawyer. The latter denounced the requisitions “excessive”on the grounds that “the facts take place in less time” than those of Dominique Pelicot. The accused's counsel rather expected a ” sentence below 15 years.

« He is a man who has a complicated experience, the absence of dangerousness is recognized”he argued. What the prosecution nevertheless highlighted in its requisitions. Highlighting a childhood “extremely difficult and traumatic”marked by “sexual assault suffered by his mother” but also himself from his father.

The justice system still has many cases to study in this imposing case in which 50 co-defendants of Dominique Pelicot appear. With several specificities in mind: 33 accused claimed an alteration of discernment at the time of the facts, 35 maintain not having participated in a “ viol ”, despite the video evidence. Without forgetting the cases of ten men who went several times to the family home in Mazan, where we will have to wait to know if the prosecution chooses to distinguish their case from the others.

Also see on HuffPost :