Co-Defendant in French Mass Rape Trial Admits He ‘Chose’ to Participate

This week, another onslaught of disturbing testimony arrived from the rape trial that’s sent shockwaves through France and the rest of the world. Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman whose ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, is on trial for inviting over 80 men to rape her while she was unconscious between 2011 and 2020, has become a hero for her insistence on exposing all the men who took part. The men themselves have either claimed that they, too, were victims, or well, worse.

On Monday, a co-defendant identified only as “Cédric G.” reportedly took culpability for raping Pelicot (“I had my free will, I chose”) and told the court with startling shamelessness that he had previously engaged in similarly concerning behavior in past relationships. For example, one ex-girlfriend, identified as “Marion,” testified that he doxxed her: “My name, my phone number, my social media, both sides of my identity card, my office address so that I could be harassed, which was the case for years.” She also said that she once found a text message he sent to Dominique where he fantasized about her being raped.

Cédric G. claimed to have met Dominique on the now-defunct message board called “Without their knowledge” and the two forged something resembling a friendship. Though Dominique has claimed he was less “perverse” than Cédric G.

“I didn’t have the impression of being manipulated by Dominique Pelicot, but of being a little perverted, for his pleasure and mine,” he claimed. Even still, the men were, at one time, close enough that they took a “spotting trip” near Marion’s home after their breakup. Cedric claimed Dominique then gave him a bottle of Lorazepam with the purpose of drugging her, as they had Gisèle.

“There’s something exhilarating about it,” Cédric G. told the court, referring to rape. “We’re in total transgression, it gives us a kind of power.” However, he claimed he never actually went through with it in Marion’s case.

“I was two feet deep in the fantasy, but something told me: ‘Stop, Cédric, stop,'” he said on the stand. During her testimony, Marion, on the other hand, recalled a time in which she was found unconscious one night in April 2018 after she’d been out with friends.

“I’ve been asking myself the question for six years,” Marion told the court of her fears that he was the one responsible for drugging her that night. She added that she had once gone through Cedric’s phone only to discover an unsettling text message to Dominique: “I dream she gets raped on the way home.”

Even more damning was Cedric’s admission to taking and keeping scores of photos of adolescent girls on his computer. One of the photos discussed in court reportedly shows a teenage girl with the following caption: “Little 15-year-old slut in Avignon available at Lycée Frédéric-Mistral after school.” When prosecutors asked about the identity of the girl, he replied: “The daughter of a former partner.”

Though it’s difficult to fathom how the proceedings could become any more disturbing, the trial isn’t expected to conclude until December.