What to Know about France Mass Rape Case as Dominique Pelicot Found Guilty

The Washington Post
By Leo Sands
12/19/24

What to Know about France Mass Rape Case as Dominique Pelicot Found Guilty

In a case that shocked France and the world, Dominique Pelicot was found guilty Thursday of aggravated rape and a litany of other charges. The Frenchman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for repeatedly drugging and raping his wife and orchestrating her abuse by dozens of other men, as detailed in three months of chilling courtroom evidence that have horrified a nation.

The mass rape trial — which also resulted in guilty verdicts for the other 50 defendants: 46 on rape charges, two for attempted rape and two for sexual assault — took place in open court at the unusual request of Gisèle Pelicot, 72, who said she wanted what happened to her to be known. With that choice, she transformed herself from an ordinary grandmother into a feminist hero — and forced the French public to wrestle with how seemingly ordinary men ended up in the videos her now ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, recorded and catalogued in a digital folder labeled “abuse.”

Dominique Pelicot, also 72, did not dispute the prosecution’s account. “I am a rapist, like everyone else in this room. They cannot say otherwise,” he said in his opening remarks. Some of his co-defendants proclaimed their guilt, while others contested the charges against them.

The verdicts were decided by secret ballot, cast by a panel of five judges in Avignon, southern France. Here’s what to know.

What happened to Gisèle Pelicot?

Prosecutors accused Dominique Pelicot, 72, of repeatedly raping his wife and orchestrating her abuse by at least 70 other men over a period of more than nine years.

Dominique Pelicot told the court he developed a routine of secretly sedating his wife by slipping crushed antianxiety medication into her food and drinks. The dose was enough to keep her unconscious for seven hours. He recruited strangers through an online forum — shut down in June by a court order — where people openly discussed and glorified abuse. He invited the men to his home and other places he and Gisèle were staying.

Skype and text messages submitted as evidence show he laid out strict rules to avoid waking her. He instructed the men to warm their hands on a radiator. He told them they shouldn’t smell of aftershave or smoke. Based on the videos he recorded, prosecutors said Gisèle Pelicot was raped more than 200 times while she was drugged and unconscious.

Dominique Pelicot was found guilty on all charges, including aggravated rape. About 20 of the men who appeared in his videos have yet to be identified. But prosecutors charged as many suspects as they could find. Forty-eight men were charged with rape, one with attempted rape and one with sexual assault. Some were accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot on one occasion, while others up to six times. One defendant was tried in absentia after fleeing the country. One of the defendants whom Pelicot allegedly recruited was charged with committing a copycat crime against his own wife.

Those who appeared in court ranged in age from 26 to 74. They included truck drivers, army veterans, a fireman and a nurse. About 15 of them have acknowledged guilt. Some apologized directly to Gisèle Pelicot in the courtroom. One said he would not appeal his sentence “out of respect for the victim.”

Others contested their charges, arguing that they believed Gisèle Pelicot had consented as part of a couple’s game, or that her husband’s consent was sufficient. Some accused Dominique Pelicot of manipulating them or pressuring them to participate — an account he rejected. “I didn’t put handcuffs on anyone to force them to come,” he said.

How did Gisèle Pelicot find out?

Gisèle Pelicot said she had no idea what was happening to her until she was approached by police.

She had been experiencing troubling symptoms that neither she nor her doctors could explain: memory loss, blackouts, extreme fatigue, an inflamed cervix, pain in her abdomen. She worried she might have Alzheimer’s, or cancer.

Then, in September 2020, Dominique Pelicot was arrested for trying to film under women’s skirts at a supermarket. Police seized his electronic devices — and found thousands of videos and photos showing his wife being sexually assaulted by various men.

When police first informed Gisèle Pelicot about the accusations against her husband, “she expressed her complete incomprehension,” one of her lawyers, Stéphane Babonneau, told The Washington Post. And when they showed her images from her husband’s computer, at first “she didn’t recognize the woman in the images. She didn’t understand who it was, and they told her: ‘It’s you.’”

Videos recorded by Dominique Pelicot were played as evidence during the trial on three large screens.

“When you see this woman, drugged, mistreated, dead on a bed — of course the body is not cold, it is warm, but I am like dead,” she told the court. “These men are defiling me, taking advantage of me.”

“I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” she said.

What impact has Gisèle Pelicot had in France?

In a case that shocked France and the world, Dominique Pelicot was found guilty Thursday of aggravated rape and a litany of other charges. The Frenchman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for repeatedly drugging and raping his wife and orchestrating her abuse by dozens of other men, as detailed in three months of chilling courtroom evidence that have horrified a nation.

Skype and text messages submitted as evidence show he laid out strict rules to avoid waking her. He instructed the men to warm their hands on a radiator. He told them they shouldn’t smell of aftershave or smoke. Based on the videos he recorded, prosecutors said Gisèle Pelicot was raped more than 200 times while she was drugged and unconscious.

Dominique Pelicot was found guilty on all charges, including aggravated rape. About 20 of the men who appeared in his videos have yet to be identified. But prosecutors charged as many suspects as they could find. Forty-eight men were charged with rape, one with attempted rape and one with sexual assault. Some were accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot on one occasion, while others up to six times. One defendant was tried in absentia after fleeing the country. One of the defendants whom Pelicot allegedly recruited was charged with committing a copycat crime against his own wife.

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