The singer and actor Patrick Bruel, accused of rape and sexual assault by several women, will be presented on Wednesday to three investigating judges with a view to his indictment, announced the Nanterre prosecutor’s office, which requested his placement in pre-trial detention.
The public prosecutor of Nanterre “requested the opening of a judicial investigation against him and his indictment for acts of rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment concerning nine victims, committed between 2010 and 2019”, indicated the public prosecutor in a press release.
The prosecutor also “required (his) placement in pre-trial detention”, we add from the same source.
The procedures concerning 13 other people denouncing rapes, attempted rapes, sexual assaults and sexual harassment committed between September 1992 and September 2008 were also “attached to the judicial information file” although the facts “appeared covered by the limitation period at this stage”, further details the prosecution.
This junction aims to verify whether the statute of limitations “has been acquired and to gain overall knowledge of the facts alleged against Patrick Bruel”.
48 hours of police custody
The 67-year-old artist will have spent 48 hours in police custody, a regime under which he was placed Monday morning. He was questioned by investigators from the Parisian judicial police about sexual violence denounced by 13 women, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office indicated.
On Monday, his lawyers Mes Céline Lasek, Fanny Colin and Christophe Ingrain explained that the singer had “for several weeks made it known that he was at the disposal of justice, to finally be able to respond within the framework of the legal procedure, before the competent authority”.
Asked by AFP on Wednesday, Me Lasek did not wish to react at this stage. My Ingrain and Colin were not immediately reachable.
“I am also as relieved as my clients. When I saw 9 out of 13, I was a little scared, but my two clients are on the list of victims. We will be able to work with the justice system,” Me Myriam Guedj-Benayoun, who defends two women accusing Patrick Bruel of sexual violence in Brussels in 2010 and in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse) in 2015, told AFP.
“A first legal victory”
“This is a real first legal victory for the victims. I obviously have a special thought for Daniela Elstner, who was the first in this new procedure to have courageously opened the way and thanks to whom this procedure is here,” reacted for AFP Me Jade Dousselin, lawyer for Ms. Elstner.
According to the Mediapart information site, which revealed this affair on March 18, the general director of Unifrance accuses Patrick Bruel of having sexually assaulted her and of having attempted to rape her in November 1997 during the French Film Festival in Acapulco (Mexico). Daniela Elstner, then 26 years old, was an assistant at Unifrance.
“This is a strong signal from the prosecution,” reacted Me Iris Biehler, lawyer for a woman accusing the singer of sexual assault in Perpignan in 2019 and another denouncing an attempted rape in Neuilly in 2019.
The prosecution “took the measure of the seriousness and the multitude of facts and a possible risk of renewal and pressure on the victims or witnesses”, added Me Biehler to AFP.
During the artist’s custody, three new complaints for rape and attempted rape were also announced by Me Myriam Guedj-Benayoun and Me Corinne Herrmann.
The client of Me Guedj-Benayoun – also lawyer for Ophélie Fajfer whose complaint was closed in 2022 was the subject of a reopened investigation in May – denounces an attempted rape in 2000, when she was 19 years old, at the singer’s home.
As for the two women defended by Me Herrmann – counsel for the journalist Flavie Flament who accuses the artist of having raped her as a teenager in 1991 – they accuse the singer of rape and “wish to be heard by an investigating judge”, according to their lawyer.
Under pressure, Patrick Bruel, who disputes all the accusations, announced the cancellation of most of his next tour, which was to begin in mid-June in Paris before taking him to festivals.
