Over the course of nearly a decade, a man in the south of France is accused of recruiting strangers online to rape his wife after drugging her with anxiety medication. He and 50 co-defendants, including civil servants and firefighters, are to be judged in a trial beginning Monday in a court in Avignon and expected to last several months.
Between 2011 and 2020, Dominique P., a 71-year-old former employee with electricity provider EDF, allegedly incited more than 70 men to rape his wife while she lay unconscious at their home.
Of the 72 suspects, 50 have been identified and are standing trial. They face up to 20 years in prison.
They include civil servants, soldiers, firefighters, prison guards, truck drivers, a journalist and municipal councillor.
The men, aged 21 to 68 at the time, were recruited via an online sex forum called "Without her knowing".
The victim, a woman in her early 70s who wishes to remain anonymous, will attend the trial and face her alleged rapists for the first time.
According to her lawyer, she has no memory of the rapes and discovered what had happened to her only at the time of her husband's arrest.
Sexual assaults videoed
Dominique P. was arrested in September 2020 after he was found using a pen with a hidden camera to spy on women in changing cubicles in a shopping centre in the town of Carpentras.
When police searched his home in a nearby village they found numerous videos and photos of his wife, visibly unconscious and often in the foetal position, being raped by different men.
Police also found conversations on an online platform, coco.gg, where Dominique P. invited people to come and take advantage of his wife. The site, denounced by authorities as a "den of predators", was closed down by the courts in June.
The images found on his camera phone and computer allowed police to identify 92 acts of rape by 72 men.
One of the accused, a fireman, was shown wearing his uniform during the assault. Prosecutors say his computer contained 728 images of children being sexually abused.
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Dominique P. is currently in prison in Avignon charged with aggravated rape and administering drugs to sedate his wife.
He admits to having sometimes put powerful anti-anxiety drugs in his wife's evening meal without her knowledge.
Some of his co-defendants claim they had no idea the victim had not consented and that they believed they were participating in the fantasies of a libertine couple. One denied it was rape, telling investigators: "It's his wife, he does what he likes with her."
'Everyone knew'
The majority of the accused had sex with the victim on one occasion, and 10 of them several times.
Dominique P. maintains "everyone knew" his wife was being drugged without her consent.
While the victim's lack of consent has been established – experts describing her state as "closer to a coma than sleep" – the court will have to rule on how aware the co-defendants were of that at the time.
Prosecutors maintain everyone had free will and could have left the scene. Dominique P. claims only three of the accused did not go through with the sexual act.
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Dominique P. claims to have been raped by a nurse when he was nine years old. His lawyer says he is ready to "face his wife and family".
Separately, the chief defendant has been accused of murder and rape in a case dating back to 1991 – a charge he denies.
He has admitted to charges of attempted rape from 1999 after DNA tests proved he was the perpetrator.
