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French movie star Gerard Depardieu has been discovered responsible of sexually assaulting two ladies in the course of the filming of a film in 2021 and can serve an 18-month suspended jail sentence.
He was additionally fined €29,040, and the courtroom requested that he be registered in France’s nationwide intercourse offender database.
Depardieu, 76, was convicted of groping two feminine staff: a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant in the course of the filming of Les Volets Verts.
The set dresser mentioned Depardieu trapped her between his legs in a slender hall earlier than grabbing maintain of her hips and groping different components of her physique, together with her chest. She additionally mentioned he used an obscenity to ask her to the touch his penis and urged he wished to rape her.
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She instructed the courtroom that the actor’s calm and cooperative angle in the course of the trial bore no resemblance to his behaviour at work.
The opposite defendant mentioned that Depardieu groped her buttocks and breasts on three separate events on-set.
The case was broadly seen as a post-#MeToo motion take a look at of how French society and its movie trade would deal with allegations of sexual misconduct involving high-profile people.
Depardieu, who has denied the accusations, didn’t attend the listening to in Paris. His lawyer mentioned the actor would enchantment the choice.
Following his conviction, Carine Durrieu Diebolt, the set dresser’s lawyer, mentioned, “It’s the victory of two ladies, however it’s the victory of all the ladies past this trial.”
French actor Gerard Depardieu is seen leaving the Tribunal de Paris courthouse on March 24, 2025. Depardieu was discovered responsible of sexually assaulting two ladies in the course of the filming of a film in 2021.
JULIEN DE ROSA / Getty Pictures
“At the moment, we hope to see the top of impunity for an artist on the planet of cinema,” she continued. “I feel that with this determination, we will now not say that he’s not a sexual abuser. And in the present day, because the Cannes Movie Pageant opens, I’d just like the movie world to spare a thought for Gerard Depardieu’s victims,” she concluded.
Depardieu instructed the courts he has made greater than 250 movies all through his illustrious profession, propelling him to the top of French cinema. In 1991, he obtained an Oscar nomination for his efficiency in Cyrano de Bergerac because the eponymous lead.
In recent times, the actor has been accused of misconduct by greater than 20 ladies, however solely the sexual assault case went to courtroom. A number of different circumstances have been dropped resulting from a scarcity of proof or a statute of limitations.
Throughout the four-day trial in March, Depardieu denied the accusations, saying he’s “not like that.”
Nonetheless, he acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualized language on the movie set and that he grabbed the set dresser’s hips throughout an argument. He denied that his behaviour was sexual.
The courtroom’s three-judge panel determined that Depardieu’s explanations have been “unpersuasive” and “not credible” and confused each accusers’ “fixed, reiterated and substantiated declarations.”
The courtroom additionally mentioned Depardieu’s defence crew employed an “aggressive” defence technique and regarded their feedback in courtroom to have induced extra hurt to the plaintiffs, subsequently justifying greater fines.
Depardieu’s lawyer, Jérémie Assous, mentioned he regretted that the courtroom “thought of that questioning the accusations is an extra assault,” including that any such defence, “even in any such trial, is now not accepted.”
— With information from The Related Press
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