Following the guilty verdict of her former husband, Gisèle Pelicot said she never regretted her decision to take her ex to court or to allow the world to watch.
More than 50 men have been found guilty in one way or another for the rape or sexual assault of one French woman, Gisele Pelicot, 72, over a decade from 2011 to 2020. The rapes were orchestrated by Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, 72, who has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping his wife as well as drugging her and inviting men to their home in France to rape her. A panel of five judges, who voted by secret ballot, handed Pelicot a 20-year prison sentence on Thursday, the longest sentence possible for this crime according to French law.
He will not be eligible for parole until he has served two-thirds of his sentence. Pelicot is entitled to appeal the sentence within 10 days of the verdict, but his lawyers did not indicate whether he plans to do this. In one way or another, all 51 defendants in the case have been found guilty of harming Pelicot. Some 47 of the defendants were found guilty of rape. Two men were found guilty of attempted rape and two were found guilty of sexual assault. They were identified from videos of the assaults on Gisele Pelicot that her husband had filmed.
Men who were featured in 20 additional videos of assaults, which were shown in court, have not been identified and are still at large. In total, police believe Gisele Pelicot was assaulted by 72 men. More than a dozen men convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot plan to appeal their sentences, but her ex-husband, the mastermind behind her abuse, will not be one of them, his lawyer has confirmed. Speaking to broadcaster France Info, lawyer Béatrice Zavarro said Dominique Pelicot wants to spare his ex-wife the painful ordeal of another trial, but also admitted there’s a chance a new trial in front of a public jury could result in a longer prison sentence.
Of the 50 accused of rape, just one was acquitted but was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault. Another man was also found guilty on the sexual assault charge that he was tried for — meaning all 51 of the defendants were found guilty in one way or another. Seventeen men plan to appeal, according to French news outlets. The court sentenced Dominique Pelicot to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping Gisèle Pelicot and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious.
During the trial, Dominique Pelicot admitted that for nearly a decade he drugged his unwitting wife through food and drink and invited dozens of men to rape her while she could not consent. Gisèle Pelicot testified that she has no recollection of the events and spent years wondering why she was often so tired.
