Rape investigation: Gérald Darmanin heard this Monday under the status of assisted witness

The Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, targeted by a judicial investigation for rape, was heard Monday morning by the judges who placed him under the status of assisted witness, said his lawyers.

"Gérald Darmanin, at his request, was heard this morning by two investigating judges as part of" the judicial information on this accusation of rape for facts dating from 2009, announced Me Mathias Chichportich and Pierre-Olivier Sur , confirming information from Point.

According to his advice, "the investigating judges confirmed his status as an assisted witness. He continues to be at the disposal of the courts".

Accused of rape, sexual harassment and breach of trust

The examining magistrates can summon Gérald Darmanin initially as an assisted witness and then change his status in the procedure to that of indicted if it brings together "serious or concordant evidence".

The information was not confirmed from a judicial source to AFP early Monday evening.

Initially scheduled for December 1, this hearing was postponed at the request of the minister's lawyers.

Gérald Darmanin is accused by Sophie Patterson-Spatz of rape, sexual harassment and breach of trust.

In 2009, the complainant addressed the elected official, then in charge of the legal affairs department of the UMP (ancestor of LR), to try to revise a 2004 conviction for blackmail and malicious appeals to the regard to an ex-companion.

According to her, Gerald Darmanin would have dangled his support from the Chancellery via a letter, in exchange for sexual favors that she would have accepted in March 2009, feeling forced to "go to the pan", according to her expression in front of the investigators. .

A complaint for slanderous denunciation

The Paris Court of Appeal had ordered in mid-June the resumption of the investigations into this accusation of rape, almost two years after the refusal of an examining magistrate to resume the investigation.

The investigating chamber of the court of appeal did not indeed follow the requisitions of the public prosecutor's office and considered that the investigating magistrate "could not rely solely on the results of the preliminary investigation" to render a no- place before any new investigation.

Heard in open hearing during the preliminary investigation in February 2018, Gérald Darmanin confirmed having had a sexual relationship with Ms. Patterson-Spatz, but according to him freely consented and at the initiative of the complainant: "There was no counterpart ".

"You still have to measure what it's like to be wrongly accused, of having to explain to your parents what happened because, it's true, I had a young man's life ", explained Gérald Darmanin in July to La Voix du Nord.

Gérald Darmanin, whose appointment as Minister of the Interior had been criticized by feminists, mainly because of this case, filed a complaint for slanderous denunciation.