‘I am a rapist,’ admits former husband who invited dozens of men to rape Gisèle Pelicot
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
A 71-year-old French man admitted in court on Tuesday that for nearly a decade, he repeatedly drugged his unwitting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious in their bed.
In a trial that has gripped France and raised new awareness about sexual violence, Dominique Pelicot told the court that he also raped his wife Gisèle Pelicot, who has since divorced him, and that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,” Dominique Pelicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
Dominique Pelicot’s testimony is the most important moment so far in a trial that has shocked and gripped France, and raised new awareness about sexual violence.
While he previously confessed to investigators, the court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of some 50 other men standing trial with him. Many deny having raped Gisèle Pelicot, saying they were manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.
Dominique Pelicot admitted to drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her over nearly a decade, begging for his family’s forgiveness, as he told a French court: ‘I am a rapist.’ Gisèle Pelicot waived her legal right to anonymity and said she wanted the trial to be held publicly to alert the public to sexual abuse.
Many following the case also hope his testimony might help explain why Dominique Pelicot would subject his wife of 50 years and the mother of his three children to such unconscionable abuse.
Gisèle Pelicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media.
Under French law, the proceedings inside the courtroom cannot be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pelicot is brought to the court through a special entrance inaccessible for the media, because he and some other defendants are being held in custody during the trial. Defendants who are not in custody come to the trial wearing surgical masks or hoods to avoid having their faces filmed or photographed.
After days of uncertainty due to his medical state, Dominique Pelicot appeared in court Tuesday and told judges he acknowledged all the charges against him. His much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.
Dominique Pelicot said he had wanted his wife to participate in partner swaps and her refusal, together with trauma from his youth, had helped to trigger his abusive behaviour.
“It became a perversion, an addiction,” he told the courtroom.
Gisèle Pelicot was in the courtroom during his appearance on the stand and was greeted with applause by spectators when she left during breaks.
‘One is not born a pervert’
Seated in a wheelchair, Pelicot spoke to the court for an hour, from his early life to years of abuse against his now ex-wife. Expressing remorse, his voice trembling and at times barely audible, he sought to explain events that he said scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.
“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pelicot told the judges, after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male nurse in hospital when he was nine years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.
Pelicot also spoke of the trauma endured when his parents took a young girl in the family, and witnessing his father’s inappropriate behaviour toward her.
“My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,” he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”
Crowds took to the streets in France over the weekend to show support for Gisèle Pélicot, whose husband is accused of drugging her and allowing strangers to rape her over several years.
At 14, he said, he asked his mother if he could leave the house, but “she didn’t let me.”
Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pelicot said she did not deserve what he did. “From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he said in tears.
When asked by one of the lawyers if he thought he could win back his former partner, Dominique Pelicot said: “It is important to have hope. Otherwise, it’s over.”
‘I trusted this man entirely’
After he spoke about his difficult upbringing, Gisèle Pelicot was given the opportunity to address the court.
“It is hard for me to hear this. For 50 years, I lived with a man. I couldn’t imagine even one second that he could have committed acts of rape,” she said. “I trusted this man entirely.″
The two looked at each other, him from behind the dock’s glass window and her from the witness stand.
“I am guilty,” he told her. “I regret everything I did. I ask you for forgiveness, even if it is unpardonable.”
Asked if she wanted to respond, Gisèle Pelicot turned around and left the stand.
Investigators also found photos of his daughter
Gisèle Pelicot and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.
A security agent caught Pelicot in 2020 filming videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. Police searched Pelicot’s house and electronic devices, and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisèle Pelicot while she appears to lie unconscious on their bed.
With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.
In addition to the photos and videos of Gisèle Pelicot, investigators found photos of the Pelicots’ daughter, Caroline Darian, and two daughters-in-law that were surreptitiously taken while they were in their underwear, getting undressed or taking showers, according to authorities.
Darian walked out of the courtroom Tuesday as her father was being asked about photos of her that were found on his laptop.
“Excuse me, I’m going to vomit,” she said angrily, before rushing out. She has written a book about what happened to her family, called And I Stopped Calling you Daddy.
Dominique Pelicot faces 20 years in prison if convicted. Besides Pelicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
Published at Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:24:19 +0000
Sean (Diddy) Combs has been indicted on sex trafficking, racketeering charges
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
Sean (Diddy) Combs faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in an indictment, unsealed Tuesday, claiming he hit and abused women for more than a decade and presided over an empire of sexual crimes.
The music mogul “engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals,” according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
He is accused of inducing female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, sometimes days-long sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs.” It also refers obliquely to an attack on his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, that was captured on video.
Combs was arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities conducting a sex trafficking investigation raided his luxury homes in Los Angeles and Miami. He was due in court Tuesday afternoon, and his three sons arrived at the courthouse Tuesday morning to observe.
Defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo, speaking before details of a sealed indictment against Sean (Diddy) Combs were released on Tuesday, said his client is going to ‘fight this with all of his energy and all of his might.’ Combs faces federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering in New York.
Prosecutors said they would seek to have Combs detained pending trial. His lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said outside the courthouse Tuesday morning that he’d fight to keep him free, and that Combs is innocent and would plead not guilty.
“His spirits are good. He’s confident,” said Agnifilo, adding Combs came to New York voluntarily to “engage the court system and start the case.”
The indictment describes Combs, the 54-year-old founder of Bad Boy Records, as the head of a criminal enterprise that engaged or attempted to engage in activities including sex trafficking, forced labour, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offences, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
He’s accused of striking, punching and dragging women on numerous occasions, throwing objects and kicking them — and enlisting his personal assistants, security and household staff to help him hide it all.
“The evidence in this case is incredibly powerful,” prosecutors said in a document seeking Combs’s detention. They said they had interviewed over 50 victims and witnesses and expect the number to grow.
Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, says the investigation into the music mogul is ongoing and encouraged anyone with information about the case to come forward.
Combs and his associates wielded his “power and prestige” to “intimidate, threaten and lure” women into his orbit, “often under the pretence of a romantic relationship,” the indictment says.
It says he then would use force, threats and coercion to get the women to engage with male sex workers in “Freak Offs” — “elaborate and produced sex performances” that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded, creating dozens of videos.
He sometimes arranged to fly the women in and ensured their participation by procuring and providing drugs, controlling their careers, leveraging his financial support and using intimidation and violence, according to the indictment.
Narcotics, firearms seized, indictment says
The events could last for days, and Combs and victims would often receive IV fluids “to recover from the physical exertion and drug use,” the indictment said. It said his employees facilitated “Freak Offs” by arranging travel, booking hotel rooms, stocking them with such supplies as drugs and baby oil, scheduling the delivery of IV fluids and cleaning the rooms afterward.
During a search of Combs’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles this year, law enforcement seized narcotics, videos of the “Freak Offs” and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to prosecutors. They said agents also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers — two of them, broken into parts, in his bedroom closet in Miami.
The indictment portrays Combs as a violent man who choked and shoved people, hit and kicked victims and sometimes dragged them by their hair, causing injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. His employees and associates sometimes witnessed his violence and kept victims from leaving or tracked down those who tried, the indictment said.
It alleges that Combs sometimes kept videos of victims engaging in sex acts and used the recordings as “collateral” to ensure the women’s continued obedience and silence. He also exerted control over victims by promising career opportunities, providing and threatening to withhold financial support, dictating how they looked, monitoring their health records and controlling where they lived, according to the indictment.
As the threat of criminal charges loomed, Combs and his associates pressured witnesses and victims to stay silent, offering bribes and supplying false narratives of what happened, the indictment says.
All of this, prosecutors allege, was happening behind the facade of Combs’s global music, lifestyle and clothing business.
“A year ago, Sean Combs stood in Times Square and was handed a key to New York City. Today, he’s been indicted and will face justice,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference Tuesday. His office is bringing the case.
Combs returned the key in June after Mayor Eric Adams requested it back
Allegations turned him into industry pariah
Combs was recognized as one of the most influential figures in hip-hop before a flood of allegations that emerged over the past year turned him into an industry pariah.
In November, Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit saying he had beaten and raped her for years. She accused Combs of coercing her, and others, into unwanted sex in drug-fuelled settings.
The suit was settled in one day, but months later, CNN aired hotel security footage showing Combs punching and kicking Ventura and throwing her on a floor. After the video aired, Combs apologized, saying, “I was disgusted when I did it.”
‘I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,’ Sean (Diddy) Combs said in a video statement posted Sunday to Instagram and Facebook addressing 2016 security footage that showed him punching and kicking Cassie, an R&B singer who was his protégé and longtime girlfriend at the time.
The indictment refers to the attack, without naming Ventura, and says Combs tried to bribe a hotel security staffer to stay mum about it.
Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ventura, declined to comment Tuesday.
Combs and his attorneys denied similar allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits.
A woman said Combs raped her two decades ago when she was 17. A music producer sued, saying Combs forced him to have sex with prostitutes. Another woman, April Lampros, said Combs subjected her to “terrifying sexual encounters,” starting when she was a college student in 1994.
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura and Lampros did.
Combs has got out of legal trouble before. Notably, he was acquitted in 2001 of weapons charges related to a Manhattan nightclub shooting two years earlier that injured three people.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911
Published at Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:28:57 +0000