“He created a relationship of trust”: the crook with multiple personalities Tony Peillon soon to be tried for 5 rapes

He is a man with many faces whose trial will begin on Friday January 24, and for four days, before the Tarn Criminal Court. Already convicted nine times, notably for fraud and arms trafficking, Tony Peillon is this time suspected of having committed six rapes and a sexual assault. His victims? Young women with whom he became friends, thanks to his initial sympathy. From his childhood in Thailand to his arrest in Paris in March 2022, Sept à Huit retraced the journey of this 28-year-old man.

An entrepreneur at the head of eight companies?

Born in Bangkok, he was adopted by a French couple at the age of three. He spent his adolescence in Albi, but left high school before the baccalaureate. He then continued to invent false identities. One day a stylist, the next day he is a policeman or a motorcycle pilot. But it is with the hat of entrepreneur and investor that he will commit his first misdeeds, managing to cheat more than 16,000 euros.

Sarah fell into the trap set by Tony Peillon. Hemiplegic, she believes that he took advantage of her disability to extract money from her, under the pretext of developing his business. “He told me that he was at the head of eight companies. You should know that Tony Peillon doesn't make any mistakes in syntax, grammar, or tense concordance, so that's also why you want to believe that he is really a business director”she recalls in the video at the top of this article. Arrested, he was sentenced in this case to two years in prison, including 18 months suspended.

It was also out of greed that Tony Peillon got closer to Tamara in 2015. As a high school student, the crook was introduced to her by a friend. In the midst of a romantic breakup, she finds in the man who calls himself an orphan and homeless “someone neutral to listen to what’s on my heart”. “I was depriving myself of my meal trays at the cafeteria and bringing him food because he was telling me by text that he was hungry.”

He seemed caring and a little protective

Marion accuses Tony Peillon of rape

The two sidekicks spend New Year 2016 together. During the night, Tamara suddenly wakes up, “shaken”. She then says she understands that Tony Peillon is raping her. “You just have to survive, so don’t move, I acted as if I was still sleeping”testifies, moved, the young woman. Tamara filed a complaint in November 2018.

At the other end of France, in Rodez (Aveyron), Marion also goes to the police station to accuse the same man, Tony Peillon. She claims to have had several consensual sexual relations with him, before he abused her. “I just turned 18, I'm a little naive and looking for love. He seemed caring and a little protective, and he knew I wasn't good, so clearly he senses it and he gave me layers and layers of compliments, good words”says Marion.

Between 2028 and 2021, four other complaints were filed: three for rape and one for sexual assault. For Me Quentin Blanchet-Magon, lawyer for two of the victims, the suspect targeted “psychologically fragile people” : “He had a certain chicanery to reassure them and above all, he created a relationship of trust with his victims to achieve his ends. He planned to defraud the victims. Then, he said to himself that there was an opportunity for an act sexual and he goes from theft to rape out of opportunism.”

An arrest in the middle of a meal

An aggravating circumstance could be raised during the trial: chemical submission. In April 2017, one of Me Quentin Blanchet-Magon's clients hosted Tony Peillon at her home but “does not remember the sexual relationship, she is in a daze”. However, she discovered a few months later that she was pregnant. For her, there is no doubt: he must be the father, she aborts.

The year 2022 marks the fall of Tony Peillon, as incredible as the multiple lives he claims to have lived. After the Russian invasion, he went to Ukraine as a humanitarian, posing as a former legionnaire and then as a French employee. A fatal error: the head of the company in question recognizes him and invites him to a professional meeting in a Parisian restaurant. The police arrive and take him into custody. Incarcerated in Hérault, he faces 20 years of criminal imprisonment and remains presumed innocent. His lawyers did not wish to speak on TF1.

• Read also

  Fight against gender-based and sexual violence in health: the government announces the creation of an observatory

The six women accusing Tony Peillon, who denies the facts with which he is accused, fear the trial. Like Tamara, regularly subject to anxiety attacks and to whom the rapes she claims to have suffered come back in flashes. “I wanted to be an event photographer to tour music groups. I had the means to do something cool and that was taken away from me. He took that part of me away so I can't no longer find my previous dreams.”