The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed on Tuesday January 24 the dismissal of the case rendered last July for the benefit of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, accused by Sophie Patterson-Spatz of having raped her in 2009, learned the AFP from sources familiar with the matter.
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The Attorney General of Paris Rémy Heitz confirmed in a press release the meaning of this decision of the investigating chamber which comes to clear a little more the political horizon of Gérald Darmanin by putting an end to this very sensitive file, open since 2017 .
A rape “by surprise”
During a closed-door hearing on December 13, in the absence of the two main protagonists, the general prosecutor’s office had requested confirmation of the dismissal.
In its written submissions consulted by AFP, the public prosecutor dismissed “the hypothesis of false or malicious accusations” by Sophie Patterson-Spatz, but felt that“it cannot be considered that (she) did not consent to the sexual act”.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Me Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon, evoked on the contrary a “surprise rape” and sexual intercourse “extorted”, “neither free nor consented”. The lawyer had expressed her wish to have “finally entitled to a little justice”because “the incriminating elements for the rape are present in the file”.
The lawyers for the Minister of the Interior, Mes Pierre-Olivier Sur and Mathias Chichportich, were to react during the day, as was Me Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon.
“You too, you will have to help me”
Sophie Patterson-Spatz, 50, filed a first rape complaint against Gérald Darmanin in the spring of 2017, for acts that allegedly occurred in Paris in 2009.
In 2009, the complainant contacted Gérald Darmanin, then project manager in the legal affairs department of the UMP (which has since become LR), to obtain support when she wanted to have a 2005 conviction for blackmail and malicious calls to an ex-companion.
According to her, he had dangled his possible support during an evening via a letter that he undertook to write to the Chancellery, and had asked in exchange for a sexual relationship.
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The Complainant and the Minister both acknowledge a sexual relationship. But Sophie Patterson-Spatz believes she was forced to “go to the pan” with Gérald Darmanin when the latter, then aged 26, said to him: “You too, you will have to help me”. For his part, the Minister of the Interior claims to have “given in to charms” of a complainant “enterprising”.
After investigations closed three times and procedural disputes, Ms. Patterson-Spatz had obtained in the summer of 2020 the appointment of an investigating judge to examine her charges. Gérald Darmanin had been placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness at the end of 2020.
