Man allegedly drugged wife, recruited strangers to rape her 92 times over 10 years – India TV

Paris:In a horrifying revelation, a man has gone on trial for allegedly drugging and raping his 72-year-old wife, and recruiting dozens of strangers to come to his home and sexually assault the victim. In a case that has shocked France for its massive crimes, it emerged the woman was so heavily drugged she was unaware of the violence she was undergoing.

The accused, identified as Dominique Pelicot, 71, allegedly crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication and mixed them into his wife Gisele’s dinner or wine at their home in Mazan, Provence, according to the Guardian. The father-of-three recruited men to rape and sexually assault him from an online chat room where the men fantasized about performing sex acts on non-consenting partners.

Police have identified at least 92 rapes by 72 men, 50 of whom have been identified and charged and are currently on trial alongside her husband. The victim, now 72, only found out about the abuse in 2020 after being tipped off by police, the BBC reported. Her lawyer Antoine Camus said the trial would be a “terrible experience” for her because it would be the first time she had seen video evidence of the abuse.

Presiding Judge Roger Arata announced that all hearings would be public, fulfilling Gisele Pelicot’s wish for a “full publicity to the end” of the trial. The victim was supported by her three children and asked for a public trial because a closed-door trial was “what her attackers wanted.”

When did this start?

The horrific sexual abuse is believed to have begun in 2011. Investigators also found chat rooms on the website where Dominique P. allegedly recruited strangers to come to their home and rape his wife. Most of the accused rapists, aged 26 to 74, participated once, but some did so as many as six times, prosecutors said.

Dominique Pelicot was arrested on November 2, 2020, after a security guard caught him filming women up their skirts at a local supermarket. Police found a file marked “abuse” on a USB drive connected to his computer that contained 20,000 images and videos of his wife being raped almost 100 times.

He later confessed to the crime and admitted to “putting her to sleep,” “offering her” and filming the horrific rapes. Medical records reportedly show he obtained 450 sleeping pills over the course of one year. The accused men, recruited by her husband, were ordered to avoid smelling any perfume or cigarette smoke so as not to alert his wife, and to leave if she so much as moved her hand, investigators said.

Who are the defendants?

In addition to Dominique Pelicot, who has also been charged with the 1991 murder and rape of a 23-year-old real estate agent named Sophie Narme and attempted rape in 1999, the 50 others include a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, a former policeman, a prison guard, a soldier, a firefighter and a civil servant. Several of the defendants have denied the allegations, telling police they had no idea Gisele was not a willing partner and accusing Dominique of deceiving them.

Gisele was reportedly drugged “nearly to the point of coma.” Now divorced, her lawyers said Gisele believed she had an illness no one could explain and consulted several doctors, always accompanied by her husband, who blamed her symptoms on fatigue from caring for her grandchildren. Her three children and other relatives suspected she had Alzheimer’s.

“The trial involves acts of extreme violence repeated over a period of about ten years. The photos will be widely distributed, the videos will be watched, and it seems that the publicity would be dangerous to public decency and undermine the dignity of individuals, both victims and defendants,” the prosecutor argued.

Dominique and 50 other defendants face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of aggravated rape in a trial expected to last four months.

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