The Paris Court of Appeal will issue its decision on Thursday on actor Gérard Depardieu’s request to cancel his indictment for “rape” and “sexual assault” on actress Charlotte Arnould, alleged facts dating from August 2018 The investigating chamber had studied on February 3 the request of the monument of French cinema, aged 73, to pronounce the nullity of his indictment concerning these facts which he “totally disputes”. Before the deliberation, expected Thursday at 1 p.m., neither Mr. Depardieu’s lawyer, Me Hervé Témime, nor the plaintiff’s lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, wished to comment. The plaintiff Charlotte Arnould, born in 1995 and 22 years old at the time of the events, had presented herself to the gendarmerie of Lambesc (Bouches-du-Rhône) at the end of August 2018, claiming to have been raped a few days earlier twice at the Parisian home of the star , a mansion in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. According to a source close to the case, the actor is a friend of the victim’s family. The legal proceedings opened in Aix-en-Provence against the French actor, also a Russian citizen since 2013, had been transferred to the capital. A confrontation between the actor and the young actress had been organized in the premises of the Parisian judicial police, indicated a source close to the file to AFP. On June 4, 2019, the public prosecutor’s office had however closed the file without further action after nine months of preliminary investigation, explaining that “the numerous investigations carried out” had “not made it possible to characterize the offenses denounced in all their constituent elements”. the complainant obtained the resumption of the investigation in mid-August 2020 through a complaint with a civil action. A Parisian investigating judge indicted Gérard Depardieu on December 16, 2020 for “rape” and “sexual assault”, leaving him free without judicial control. The complainant, Charlotte Arnould, spoke in mid-December on Twitter to reveal her identity. “He works while I spend my time surviving,” she wrote. Since his indictment, Gérard Depardieu has been heard on the merits of the case by the investigating judge, according to sources close to the case. He is currently showing at the cinema in Retirement home, Maigret and Robuste.
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