A man is on trial accused of routinely drugging and raping his wife, as well as inviting dozens of other men to rape her in their home while she was unconscious, according to court documents.
Gisèle, 72, the accused victim, came in court in Avignon, France, on Monday for the trial’s commencement, wearing sunglasses and accompanied by her daughter and two sons.
For the next four months, she will confront her accused abusers, the majority of them are virtual strangers to her.
Prosecutors claim Dominique, 71, would recruit men online to rape his wife after drugging her with sleeping medicines and anti-anxiety medications. CNN is not using the man and wife’s full names to protect the privacy of other family members.
He faces nine accusations, including several counts of rape with aggravating circumstances, drugging a victim in order to commit rape, and disseminating photographs from those assaults.
Dominique filmed some of the alleged attacks on camera, allowing prosecutors to build a case.
Courtroom drawings show the defendant, who has been in pre-trial prison since 2020, entering the courtroom wearing a black t-shirt and sitting across from his wife.
“He recognizes that he’s done what he has done,” his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, told reporters in court on Monday. “There was not an ounce of contestation during the whole investigation.”
The guys accused of participating in these rapes sat in the dock, heads down.
According to court documents, police have identified at least 92 sexual assaults by 72 individuals ranging in age from 26 to 74.
Fifty were identified, and the most have been charged with aggravated or attempted rape and are on trial with Gisèle’s husband.
The ordeal lasted over ten years, with the first claimed assaults dating back to 2011.
Dominique was caught filming under women’s skirts in a shopping center in 2020, which revealed the crimes.
After seizing his phone and computer, authorities claim they discovered evidence of the rapes. An investigation was launched, and the wife was made aware of the abuse she had suffered for nearly a decade.
According to court filings, Dominique informed detectives that the other men were all aware that his wife had been drugged without her knowledge, something several of the other accused reject.
On Tuesday, Christophe Huguenin-Virchaux, a lawyer for one of the men, told CNN affiliate BFMTV that his client “admits that sexual relations did in fact take place” but that they took place as part of a “sexual game between a husband and his wife that he was invited to,” adding that he was “not aware that Gisèle was drugged or under medication.”
Throughout the trial, Gisèle will witness and hear what was done to her.
On Tuesday, she sat through a reading of the horrifying crimes she witnessed, as well as arguments from each of the defendants’ attorneys.
“It was very difficult,” one of her attorneys, Stéphane Babonneau, told CNN on Tuesday. “It was unbearable for her to hear people say they thought she was pretending to sleep and were convinced it was consensual,” she told him.
Another of her lawyers, Antoine Arebalo-Camus, told reporters last Friday before the trial that “she had no idea what had been inflicted on her, so she has no memory of the rapes she suffered for 10 years.”
Gisèle could have asked for a private trial, but Babonneau told CNN that “she wanted it to be a public trial so that everyone can hear and get an idea of the excuses given by men in such circumstances.”
Gisèle’s daughter claims her mother sought medical attention for the medications’ negative effects, which included memory loss and acute exhaustion.
In a series of appearances with French media, she stated that her mother “saw doctors, she saw neurologists,” and that the medical community failed to identify the problem.
The daughter has now launched an awareness campaign called “M’endors Pas,” which translates to “Don’t put me to sleep,” against drug-assisted sexual assault.
The trial began on September 2 in the southern French town of Avignon, and the result is expected on December 20 this year.
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