Sophie Spatz, who accuses Gérald Darmanin of rape, testifies to "20 Minutes" -

20 Minutes

  • In 2017, Sophie Spatz filed a complaint for “rape” against Gérald Darmanin.

    She assures us that in 2009 he would have exerted a "psychological constraint" on her to obtain her sexual favors.

  • Struck with two classifications without continuation of the prosecution then a dismissal of an examining magistrate, his complaint was relaunched in June by the Paris Court of Appeal, which called for “additional investigations”.

  • Heard in October by judge Mylène Huguet, Sophie Spatz maintained her accusations.

    Gérald Darmanin for his part was heard on Monday 14 December.

The facts date back to spring 2009. But even today, Sophie Spatz's voice invariably breaks when she begins to recount this evening spent with Gerald Darmanin.

"I did not manage to leave… I was devastated… I had no choice…" The sentences are not modest without reason.

This is the only way that this woman, now aged 48, has found to evoke the rape of which she claims to have been a victim at the hands of the current Minister of the Interior.

"It's hard to talk about it ..." she breathes.

And yet: in an interview she gave to

20 Minutes

Friday, December 11

(read the box)

, she indicates that she is not ready to give up her fight.

"I will go all the way.

I will exhaust all legal remedies.

I am not afraid of anyone.

Not even the man she accuses today, and whose status is necessarily special.

"On the fact that he is Minister of the Interior, I will be a little brutal ... I don't care!

For me, that doesn't change anything… ”

A libertine club and a night at the hotel

After having obtained a postponement of his summons "due to a major professional constraint", Gérald Darmanin was finally heard, all Monday morning, by judges Mylène Huguet and Dimitri Dureux.

He was interviewed as an assisted witness, an intermediate status between that of a simple witness and that of an indictment.

"It is the demonstration that there is not, in the minds of the judges, of index demonstrating the existence of any infringement", wants to believe Mathias Chichportich, the lawyer of the Minister of the Interior .

🔴 [INFO ALERT] Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, targeted by an investigation for “rape”, heard under the status of assisted witness, this Monday morning https://t.co/ThL7NXY0qG

- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) December 14, 2020

According to our information, Sophie Spatz, for her part, was interviewed by Mylène Huguet at the end of October.

Obviously, she returned to her meeting with Gerald Darmanin in 2009. Sentenced for a case of blackmail and malicious calls, she was seeking at the time to obtain a review trial.

UMP member, she goes to the party headquarters, where she meets the one who is only in charge of mission and from whom she asks for advice.

“It might sound laughable but she wrote to everyone at the time.

Even to Jean Sarkozy!

», Recalls Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon, his lawyer.

According to his story, Gerald Darmanin then promises to intervene.

A few days later, he offers her a dinner.

The evening continues “By candlelight” at a libertine club, then in a hotel in rue de Richelieu, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, where they have a sexual relationship.

"He said to me: 'I'm going to help you. But I too will have to help me ...', she says today.

I understood… He had my life in his hands… I had no choice… ”

He collects bath products from his mother

Heard for the first time by the police on February 12, 2018, Gérald Darmanin has a diametrically opposed version.

He ensures that it is Sophie Spatz who took the lead.

Aged 26 at the time, he explains that he was “impressed”, “a little embarrassed” but also “sensitive” to his charms.

He also lets go that Sophie Spatz could have run away several times if she had really felt threatened.

That evening, once at the hotel, the young woman indeed indicated to Gérald Darmanin that she wanted to take a bath but that she needed toiletries.

The current minister then came out to fetch some from his mother who lived "a 10-minute walk" away.

On her return, Sophie Spatz was still in the bathtub.

"Several times ... I tried to leave ... But I didn't succeed," she retorts about it today.

He was exerting a form of psychological coercion on me.

"

An analysis that the tenant of Place Beauvau categorically refutes.

"I don't want to make people cry in cottages," he said in July in the columns of

La Voix du Nord

.

But you still have to measure what it is to be wrongly accused, to have to explain to your parents what happened because, it's true, I had a young man's life. .

"

The Court of Appeal calls for "additional investigations"

At the time, Sophie Spatz had denounced the facts, in particular to the UMP in an email sent to Jean-François Copé on November 6, 2009. But she waited for 2017 to file a complaint for rape.

“I was in the case of many people, confides the one who assumes her past as an escort girl.

I thought you had to be abused, your clothes ripped off, beaten up, etc.

As of today, I can use the word rape.

But at the material time, I was not able to say that word… ”

And it is undoubtedly in this awareness that we must now seek the reasons for its tenacity.

At first struck by two classifications without follow-up, in particular because she had not presented herself at her first summons, her complaint was then dismissed, "the hearings not having made it possible to" establish the lack of consent ”of the complainant.

But last June, the chamber of instruction ordered the reopening of the investigation, considering that "additional investigations" are necessary.

An opportunity that Sophie Spatz will not pass up.

“Pierre-Olivier Sur [one of Gérald Darmanin's lawyers] believes that I am bent on his client.

I want to reassure him: I am not below the others.

And yes, I will go before all the courts if necessary… ”Starting with the cabinet of judges, if they order a confrontation.

“It's very difficult to imagine myself again in the presence of Gérald Darmanin.

But of course, I would submit to it… ”

Politics

A man convicted of contempt for calling Darmanin a "rapist"

Justice

Where is the rape complaint against Gerald Darmanin?

"20 seconds of context"

The interview with Sophie Spatz took place in the premises of

20 Minutes

, Friday 11 December.

She agreed to testify under her name and without her voice being changed.

But she asked to be able to be plunged in the dark so as not to be, later, recognized in the street.

  • Interview

  • 20 minutes video

  • Rape

  • Gerald Darmanin

  • Investigation

  • Justice

  • Minister of the Interior

  • Judge