heavy sentences required against the first co-defendants

Twenty years in prison were requested against Dominique Pelicot, the main accused in the Mazan rape trial (Vaucluse), Monday November 25, 2024. This is the maximum sentence for the facts with which he is accused.

“It’s both a lot and too little”

“It’s a lot because twenty years of a life, twenty years of a man, that’s not nothing. But it is both a lot and too little: too little considering the seriousness of the acts committed, which were repeated”estimated the representative of the public prosecutor, Laure Chabaud, during her indictment. This required sentence was expected since Dominique Pelicot, 71, has never hidden his responsibility.

“We can no longer say in 2024 “since she didn’t say anything, she agreed”it’s from another age”also insisted the general advocate, evoking consent “implied” that some accused of rape of Gisèle Pelicot invoke for their actions.

The start of three days of indictment

In fact, heavy sentences, up to ten years in prison, were also requested by the prosecution against the first co-defendants, on the first day of the indictment scheduled for three days, including for the rare ones not to be prosecuted for aggravated rape.

They showed severity, including against Joseph C., 69, prosecuted for “sexual assault in a meeting on the night of June 9 to 10, 2020”against whom Jean-François Mayet, the attorney general, requested four years in prison. However, he is the only one of the 50 co-defendants not to be prosecuted for rape or attempted aggravated rape, due to lack of erection that day.

Numerous 10-year prison sentences

After about ten minutes detailing her case, her colleague Laure Chabaud continued by demanding 10 years in prison against Didier S., 68 years old, alias “Sam”, believing « impossible » that he “did not realize the state of unconsciousness of the victim”.

Then the magistrate requested the same sentence for several other co-defendants, two tried for attempted aggravated rape, Hugues M., 39 years old, “a man with limitless sexuality”and Saifeddine G., 36 years old, the others for aggravated rape. Ten years were requested against Patrick A., 60 years old, initially came to Mazan for a homosexual relationship with the husband. And 10 years also against Jacques C., 73 years old: “If penetration did not take place, it is because there was no erection”warned Laure Chabaud.

For ten years, from July 2011 to October 2020, Dominique Pelicot, now 71 years old, had hit his wife with anxiolytics to rape her and deliver her to their marital home in Mazan to dozens of men recruited on the Internet, via the site coco.fr, now banned.

Fifty of them, now aged 26 to 74, have been identified and are therefore on trial. The verdict is expected no later than December 20.