A French woman whose husband allegedly abused her for nearly a decade, drugging her and hiring dozens of strangers to rape her while she was unconscious, is set to waive her anonymity and appear in public trial.
Gisele P., 72, stood in the Avignon courtroom for the first time with her three children as the trial of Dominique P., 71, began on Monday morning. Daily Mail Reported.
In a case that has shocked France and the world, Dominique is accused of using the now-banned online chat site Coco.fr to lure at least 72 men to his home in Mazan, where he raped Gisele while she was under the influence of powerful tranquilizers.
The disgraced husband is also accused of recording these heinous acts, with police saying they found hundreds of images and videos on Dominic's computer that showed an apparently unconscious Gisele being assaulted in their home. The investigation was launched in September 2020 after a shopping centre security guard reported her husband secretly taking photos up women's skirts.
Investigators said Gisele was recorded in an awkward position, and experts told prosecutors her state was “more like a coma than asleep.”
Police say the rapes began in 2011 and continued into 2020, with at least 92 incidents occurring.
Of the 72 suspects, 51 have been identified and are awaiting trial for their alleged involvement in the shocking rape case.
Gisele had the option of not revealing her identity, but Judge Roger Arata granted her wish to allow “full publicity until the end” of the trial, her lawyer, Stephane Babonneau, said.
Her other lawyer, Antoine Camus, said Gisele decided to shed her anonymity because “her attackers” wanted her to remain anonymous.
Although Gisele has mustered the courage to come forward in court, Camus added that it will be a “frightening ordeal” for her.
“For the first time, she has to endure the rape she has endured for 10 years,” he said, noting that the victim has “no memory whatsoever” of the alleged events.
Gisele, who met Dominic in 1971, married him two years later and had three children with him, said her husband once asked her to become a spouse swapper but she declined.
Despite his sexual demands, she said, Dominic behaved like a “great man” with a “normal sex drive”.
The couple's eldest son and daughter also said their husband was a good father and was unaware of his pathological behavior.
Coco.fr is Shut down The ring, which was set up earlier this year as a collaboration between law enforcement agencies from Bulgaria, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Hungary and Lithuania, is suspected of being used by Dominic to recruit rapists.
According to Daily MailDuring the investigation, Dominic has already admitted to secretly administering the powerful anti-anxiety drug Temesta to his wife.
He told prosecutors that to avoid suspicion of rape, he told visitors not to smell of perfume or tobacco, and to soak their hands in hot water when touching Gisele so as not to wake her.
“The attacker parked his car minutes away from the couple's home and disrobed in the kitchen. No money exchanged hands,” the news outlet detailed.
Most of the suspects met the couple just once at their home, but some reportedly visited as many as six times.
The strangers' lawyers claim that they were consensual participants in sexual fantasies, in contrast to Dominic's own admission that they all knew that Gisele had been drugged without her knowledge or consent.
Dominique also told investigators that she was raped by a male nurse as a child.
His lawyer, Beatrice Zaballo, said the suspect was finally ready to face his “family and his wife.”
“He is ashamed of his actions, they are unacceptable,” his lawyer told reporters, describing the crime as “a kind of addiction.”
“My client's conduct is such that he knew what he had done and he never protested in the slightest from the start.”
Dominic was subsequently charged with murder and rape in 1991, which he denies, and also admitted to attempted rape in 1999 after DNA evidence linked him to the crimes.
It is unclear when trials in those cases will begin.
