(Adnkronos) – A French investigating judge has ordered that Gérard Depardieu, a cinema icon, be sent to trial on charges of raping and sexually assaulting actress Charlotte Arnould in 2018. This is the latest legal vicissitude for the 76-year-old actor, who in May was convicted of sexually assaulting two women on the set of a film in 2021 and given a suspended sentence of 18 months. That conviction and a series of other accusations that have emerged in recent years have irreparably tarnished the reputation of the French film star, built over a half-century career; more than twelve women have accused him of abuse.
“Seven years later, seven years of horror and hell… I think I’m having a hard time realizing how huge all of this is. I’m relieved,” said Arnould, who filed a complaint in 2018. Her lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, confirmed that Depardieu has been ordered to stand trial for the alleged assault and for the rape by digital penetration of Arnould, which occurred on two occasions in August 2018 at his Parisian home. “My client and I are relieved and confident. It is a form of judicial truth for Charlotte pending the criminal trial,” the lawyer added. The trial date has not yet been set.
Initially, the case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence, but Arnould, a family friend of Depardieu, filed a civil suit, leading to a judicial inquiry being opened in the summer of 2020. At the end of 2021, the actress publicly accused the film star of raping her twice in August 2018, when she was 22 years old and anorexic, weighing as little as 37 kilograms. Depardieu has denied the accusations of rape and sexual assault, claiming that the relationship was consensual. In a 2023 letter to the newspaper Le Figaro, the actor denied the accusations, claiming that he had “never, ever abused a woman,” and that in Arnould’s case there had “never been coercion, nor violence, nor protests.” The French actor will also have to answer to Italian justice to respond to the accusation of having assaulted the paparazzo Rino Barillari, 80, in May 2024 at a Roman bar, hitting him in the face three times after he tried to photograph him and causing him an eyebrow injury, for which the photographer was taken to the hospital and discharged with a 10-day prognosis. Depardieu’s lawyer then claimed that Barillari had violently pushed his partner, Magda Vavrusova, who was with the star. The photographer has filed a complaint.
