Sexual Assault

The trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has culminated in a verdict, after more than seven weeks of intense media scrutiny and testimony about drug-fuelled celebrity sex parties.

But beneath the salacious details, advocates say there are critical takeaways about how sexual violence is understood – and sometimes tolerated – within the criminal justice system.

On Wednesday, a federal jury in the United States delivered a split decision.

It found Combs guilty of transporting individuals to engage in prostitution, but not guilty of the weightier question of whether he engaged in sex trafficking or racketeering for flying girlfriends and sex workers to the parties he organised.

Prosecutors had described Combs’s activity as a “criminal enterprise” in which he leveraged money, power and physical violence to force former girlfriends into abusive circumstances.

The split ruling has, in turn, divided opinion about what the case means for the beleaguered #MeToo movement, which emerged in the early 2010s to bring accountability to cases of sexual violence.

For Emma Katz, a domestic abuse expert, the jury’s decision indicates there are still yawning gaps in public understanding about sexual violence. That understanding, she maintains, is necessary to assess the behaviours that accompany long-term abuse and coercion, particularly between intimate partners.

“I think a ruling like this would be a good news kind of day for perpetrators,” she told Al Jazeera. “The jury seems to have concluded you can be a victim, a survivor, whose boss beats you in hotel corridors and has control over your life, but that you’re not being coerced by him.”

“So much of what perpetrators do that enables them to get away with their abuse – and what makes their abuse so horrific and so sustained – has not been acknowledged and has disappeared from the picture in this verdict,” she added.

A ‘botched’ decision

How the jury arrived at its decision remains unknown.

But prosecutors had been tasked with proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Combs used “force, fraud, or coercion” to compel his girlfriends into commercial sex acts.

The case was centred largely on the testimony of two women: singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura Fine and a woman identified only by the pseudonym “Jane”. Both were identified as former girlfriends of Combs.

The prosecution argued that Combs had used his financial influence, violence and threats of blackmail to coerce Ventura and the other woman to perform sex acts during parties known as “freak-offs”.

The evidence included surveillance video from March 2016 of Combs beating Ventura in a hotel hallway and then dragging her away. Ventura herself gave harrowing testimony at the trial, saying she felt “trapped” in a cycle of abuse.

She explained that cycle involved regular threats and violence, including Combs “stomping” her on the face in a 2009 incident.

But the defence’s arguments throughout the proceedings appear to have swayed the jury, according to Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor.

The defence blatantly admitted that Combs was abusive towards Ventura, as the surveillance footage had shown. But Combs’s lawyers maintained there was no evidence he coerced Ventura into committing sexual acts against her will.

The Los Angeles Times even quoted defence lawyer Teny Geragos as saying, “Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”

“The big question in the case is: If you’re sexually abused or assaulted, why did you stay with your abuser for more than a decade?” Rahmani said. “I understand the psychology of abuse, but jurors don’t necessarily buy it”.

Rahmani broadly assessed that prosecutors “botched” the sex-trafficking portion of the case.

That included how prosecutors approached a series of messages from Ventura that indicated affection for Combs and active participation in sexual situations, which Rahmani noted were not revealed until cross-examination by the defence.

According to experts like Katz, such behaviour can be common in abusive relationships, in which an abuser expects a “performance of happiness” to avoid physical, financial or psychological repercussions.

“It would never surprise me to see a victim survivor sending loving texts and enthusiastic texts to somebody who they said was abusing them, because that’s all part and parcel of domestic abuse,” Katz said.

‘Stain on criminal justice’

From Katz’s perspective, the verdict underscores the reality of what has happened since the #MeToo movement emerged.

While #MeToo helped workplace harassment become more widely understood, the general public still struggles with the complexities of intimate partner violence.

“I think that the public has shown more willingness to consider how somebody might be harmed by an acquaintance, a work colleague, somebody who’s hiring them for a job,” Katz said.

By contrast, intimate partner abuse consistently raises victim-blaming questions like: Why did someone remain with an abusive partner?

“There’s still a lot of stigma around when you chose this person,” Katz explained. The thought process, she added, is often: “It can’t have been that bad if you stayed in the relationship.”

But domestic violence experts point to complicating, often unseen factors. Abuse can have psychological consequences, and abusers often attempt to wield power over their victims.

Children, housing and financial circumstances can also prevent survivors from leaving and seeking help. People experiencing such abuse might also fear an escalation of the violence – or retaliation against loved ones – should they leave.

Experts, however, say it can be hard to illustrate those fears in court. Still, on Wednesday, Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, struck a positive tone about the outcome of the Combs trial.

In a statement, he said Ventura’s legal team was “pleased” with the verdict and that her testimony helped to assure that Combs has “finally been held responsible for two federal crimes”.

“He still faces substantial jail time,” Wigdor noted. The prostitution transportation charges each carry a maximum of 10 years.

Several advocacy groups also praised Ventura and others for coming forward with their experiences.

The verdict “shows that even when power tries to silence truth, survivors push it into the light,” Lift Our Voices, a workplace advocacy group, wrote on the social media platform X. “The #MeToo movement hasn’t waned, it’s grown stronger.”

Fatima Goss Graves, head of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), echoed that Ventura’s and Jane’s testimonies were accomplishments in and of themselves.

“Coming forward and seeking accountability took extraordinary bravery and no jury can take that away,” she said.

Others were less optimistic about the jury’s split verdict. Arisha Hatch, interim executive director of UltraViolet, a gender-justice advocacy organisation, called the verdict a “decisive moment for our justice system” – and not in a good way.

“Today’s verdict is not just a stain on a criminal justice system that for decades has failed to hold accountable abusers like Diddy,” Hatch said. “It’s also an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.”

Officials pledge to toughen laws after 26-year-old childcare worker charged with abusing eight children under his care.

Australia has announced plans to tighten oversight of childcare facilities after a man in Melbourne was charged with dozens of sexual offences against children in his care.

The moves come after police in the southern state of Victoria announced on Tuesday that they had charged a 26-year-old childcare worker with more than 70 child sex offences, including rape.

The man, identified as Joshua Dale Brown, is accused of abusing eight victims, aged between five months and two years, at a childcare centre in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Police have said they are also investigating evidence of abuse at a second childcare centre in the northwest of the city.

Authorities say the accused worked at 20 childcare facilities in total during an eight-year span that lasted until May.

Health authorities in Victoria have recommended that 1,200 children linked to facilities where the man worked be tested for infectious diseases as a precautionary measure.

On Wednesday, Australian Education Minister Jason Clare said he would press ahead with legislation to strip funding from childcare facilities that do not meet adequate safety standards and examine other potential measures, including strengthening background checks for those working with minors.

“Any Australian who heard the news from Victoria yesterday would be sickened by what they heard,” Clare said during a news conference in Sydney.

“And for every parent that is directly affected by this in Victoria, they would be frightened and they’d be angry.”

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she would introduce a state register of childcare workers and ban personal devices at childcare centres from September.

Allan said her government would also commence an “urgent review” to examine options for improving safety in the sector, including potentially installing security cameras in childcare facilities.

“We will adopt every recommendation of the review and implement them as quickly as possible,” Allan said in a statement.

“Following yesterday, I know too many families are suffering unbearable pain and uncertainty. I cannot imagine what they are going through.”

The latest safety scare to engulf Australia’s childcare sector comes less than a year after a Queensland man pleaded guilty to sexually abusing dozens of girls at childcare centres in one of the worst paedophile cases in the country’s history.

Ashley Paul Griffith was sentenced to life in prison in November after admitting to more than 300 offences against 69 girls at daycare facilities in Brisbane and Italy.

Prosecutors make closing arguments in six-week trial that heard harrowing testimony from people who faced alleged abuse.

United States prosecutors argued that Sean “Diddy” Combs used his wealth and influence to evade accountability for violently abusing women in closing arguments in the entertainment mogul’s trial.

Prosecutors told the jury on Thursday that Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, oversaw a vast criminal conspiracy.

“The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” prosecutor Christy Slavik told jurors in her address. “He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law.”

The trial of the billionaire former rapper, a central figure in the rise of hip-hop in US popular culture, has included harrowing testimony from women who described an atmosphere of cruelty, exploitation, and intimidation.

Over six weeks of testimony, prosecutors also said that Combs pushed people to participate in drug-fuelled sex parties known as “freak offs”, with footage of people engaged in sex acts then used as leverage by Combs.

Slavik said that Combs “again and again forced, threatened and manipulated” singer and former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura to have sex with escorts for his own entertainment and used a “small army of employees” from his entertainment empire to cover up abuses and intimidate anyone who tried to push back.

Combs sat with his head down while Slavik made her remarks before the jury, wearing a light-coloured sweater and khaki trousers. His lawyers have argued that while Combs has a violent temperament and has committed violent acts against romantic partners, prosecutors have misrepresented a sexually unorthodox lifestyle as evidence of crimes such as racketeering and trafficking.

Judge Arun Subramanian told the jury that they would hear final statements from the defence on Friday, with the prosecution given a chance to offer a rebuttal before jurors are instructed on their responsibilities and sent to begin deliberation.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday or Monday, and Combs faces a minimum of 15 years in prison if he is convicted on all counts.

The British government has announced a national inquiry into organised child sexual abuse following the release of a damning report by Baroness Louise Casey that criticised decades of institutional failure to protect children from so-called “grooming gangs”.

It marks a remarkable U-turn by the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, which had resisted months of calls for an inquiry, stating that it was focusing on recommendations already made in an earlier seven-year probe.

But what exactly is the Casey Report, and what drove Labour’s abrupt change of course?

What is the Casey Report?

Commissioned earlier this year by Starmer, the Casey Report is a review of how United Kingdom institutions have tackled child sexual exploitation.

The review focused on “grooming gangs” – groups of men who targeted vulnerable girls for sexual abuse, often over extended periods of time.

What does the report say?

The report identified an institutional failure to protect children and teenage girls from rape, exploitation and serious violence.

Among its recommendations, the Casey Report suggested a change in the law so adults in England and Wales face mandatory rape charges if they intentionally penetrate a child under age 16.

In her report, Casey concluded that too many grooming cases have been dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges because a 13- to 15-year-old is perceived to have been “in love with” or have “consented to” sex with the perpetrator.

Her review also highlighted reluctance by the authorities to “examine the ethnicity of the offenders”, saying it was not racist to do so.

In the local data that the audit examined from three police forces, they identified clear evidence of “over-representation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani-heritage men”.

However, the review also criticised the ongoing failure to collect ethnicity at a national level, with it not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, making it impossible “to provide any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data”.

Were the recommendations accepted?

Yes.

The UK’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed the government would accept all 12 recommendations in the Casey Report.

This means the police will launch a new national criminal operation targeting grooming gangs, overseen by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

This operation would be overseen by an independent commission with powers to compel witnesses to provide evidence.

It would also go ahead with a national inquiry, with Starmer stating that he had read “every single word” of the report and would accept Casey’s recommendation for an investigation.

What led to Labour’s U-turn?

Richard Scorer, the head of Abuse Law and Public Inquiries at Slater and Gordon, a law firm, told Al Jazeera that the sheer size of the scandal and the fact that it had affected thousands of children made it “inevitable” that there would need to be a public inquiry about it at some point.

US billionaire Elon Musk’s online references to the grooming scandal that emerged a decade ago in several towns and cities in northern England had also pushed the “issue up the political agenda”, he said.

In June 2022, an independent review found that the police and local council had failed to prevent sexual exploitation of young girls by gangs in Oldham, a town in Greater Manchester in England.

Two years later, political leaders in Oldham Council called for the government to investigate further, but then-Home Office Minister Jess Phillips rejected the council’s request, saying it should lead an investigation itself.

In January this year, Musk threw his weight behind far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson and had been outspoken on the issue.

He called for Robinson, a controversial political figure, then serving an 18-month jail term for contempt of court, to be freed, writing on his own social media platform X, “Why is Tommy Robinson in a solitary confinement prison for telling the truth?”

Musk also accused Starmer of failing to prosecute child rapists when he was director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013.

He also took aim at Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips, calling her “a rape genocide apologist”.

Starmer responded at the time, without mentioning Musk by name. “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they are interested in themselves,” the PM said.

Will this report bring about change?

Experts say it’s certainly a positive step.

William Tantam, a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Bristol, who has worked on a previous independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, said that from a researcher’s perspective, the main positive was that there would be more consistency and clarity in data.

He said that another positive is that inquiry panel will have the authority to compel agencies to participate.

Scorer noted that bringing in the NCA to investigate cases that haven’t progressed in the past is also a very welcome outcome of the report.

He said in the UK, different police forces have not always succeeded in coordinating their efforts to tackle grooming gangs, so a more centralised overview from the NCA might secure “a better coordination of police activity”.

Cooper told Parliament on Monday that more than 800 cases have now been identified for formal review, and she expects that figure to rise above 1,000 in the coming weeks.

But Scorer warned that the government would need to assign an additional budget for the implementation of the changes recommended by Casey.

“If you are asking the NCA to reopen and investigate, potentially up to 1000 cases, that’s going to require a huge amount of resources,” he said. “Who’s going to pay for that? That’s one of the questions that the government is going to need to answer.”

Interest in the issue was pushed by far-right groups and Elon Musk and branded by critics as a racist dog whistle.

The British government has announced it will hold a national inquiry into organised child sexual abuse after months of resisting the call from opposition groups.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday that he had read “every single word” of an independent report into the sexual assault scandal, also known as the “grooming gangs” case, by Baroness Louise Casey and would accept her recommendation for the investigation.

“That is the right thing to do on the basis of what she [Casey] has put in her audit. I asked her to do that job to double check on this; she has done that job for me and having read her report … I shall now implement her recommendations.” Starmer told reporters travelling with him during a visit to Canada.

Earlier this year, the government dismissed calls for a public inquiry, stating that it was focusing on recommendations already made in a seven-year national inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay.

In 2022, Jay found that there had been institutional failings across the country, affecting tens of thousands of victims in England and Wales.

But the opposition Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, said Starmer only backs the report because “a report told him to”.

But increased interest into the “grooming gangs” case, as the British press termed it, was pushed by far-right groups, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and further stoked by tech billionaire and Tesla owner Elon Musk, after the perpetrators of one of the most high-profile cases in the country were men of Pakistani heritage.

Their push was branded by critics as a racist dog whistle. The vast majority of “grooming gang” offences, however, are carried out by white men, the UK’s National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said earlier this year.

Musk used his X platform to criticise the British prime minister over not backing a national inquiry after the local authority in Oldham, a town in northern England, found that girls under the age of 18 were sexually exploited by groups of men in the 2000s and 2010s.

Musk also alleged that Starmer did not bring the perpetrators to justice when he was the country’s chief prosecutor between 2008 and 2013, a charge that Starmer had denied repeatedly.

Due to the similarity of the Oldham case to others in several towns, including mainly white girls being abused by men largely from a Pakistani background, the issue has been linked to immigration.

Prosecutors say they are prepared to go to trial for a third time after tension among jurors derails proceedings.

The judge in the sex crimes retrial of disgraced entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein sex crimes retrial has declared a mistrial on an outstanding rape charge against the movie producer, after the jury foreperson refused to return to deliberate the case amid a jury room feud.

Judge Curtis Farber dismissed jurors in the New York court who had been unable to reach a verdict on the charge that Weinstein raped Jessica Mann.

“Deliberations became heated to such a degree I am obligated to declare a mistrial on the one count on which you didn’t reach a verdict,” Farber declared from the wood-panelled bench, wearing a robe and reading glasses.

Tensions within the jury in the trial have been a source of speculation for several days, and the jury foreperson said that he had been yelled at for refusing to change his vote on the rape count. He said that he felt bullied and said “No, I’m sorry,” when asked on Thursday if he would return to the jury room.

The decision is the latest development in a years-long legal saga focused on Weinstein’s record of sexual abuse during his time as a powerful figure in the entertainment industry.

More than 100 women have accused Weinstein of varying forms of sexual misconduct, and allegations against him helped spark the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with their stories of sexual abuse at the hands of powerful men in a variety of industries.

The jury convicted Weinstein of one felony sex abuse charge, stemming from allegations from former production assistant Miriam Haley, on Wednesday, and acquitted him of another. But the jury could not decide on the third charge, which stems from allegations by Jessica Mann that Weinstein raped her in 2013.

The hairstylist and actress testified for days about what she says was her rape by Weinstein in a Manhattan hotel room, an event she also recounted during the first trial in 2020. Manhattan prosecutor Nicole Blumberg has said that Mann is prepared to go to trial for a third time.

Another jury in the Manhattan court had found Weinstein guilty in 2020 of raping Mann and sexually assaulting Haley, but New York state’s highest court overturned that conviction last year.

Weinstein criticised the court proceedings after Farber’s decision.

“I can’t be judged by a situation that’s going on like this,” said the 73-year-old Weinstein, who has denied all charges.

Former Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer prevailed in court Monday, when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered the woman who accused him of sexual assault to pay more than $300,000 for violating the terms of a settlement agreement.

Bauer and Lindsey Hill, the woman whose 2021 allegations triggered a Major League Baseball investigation that resulted in Bauer’s suspension, settled dueling lawsuits two years ago. He had sued her for defamation, she had sued him for assault and sexual battery, and the parties agreed that neither had paid any money to the other.

In an email to Bauer’s attorneys, Hill’s attorneys said she would receive $300,000 from her insurance policy. On Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Crowley ordered Hill to pay $309,832.02.

After the settlement, Hill claimed on social media that Bauer “handed back an insurance sum to me that was meant for him in order for me to drop my countersuit.”

Bauer sued her in October, citing 21 similar claims on a podcast or on social media — all of them alleged violations of a settlement provision forbidding her from saying Bauer or any representative “paid her any money as consideration for the settlement.” Each alleged violation cost $10,000, according to the terms of the settlement agreement.

Hill did not contest or respond to the suit. After telling Bauer’s attorneys in February they had not made a strong enough case and then telling them in April they had not justified their fees, Crowley granted Bauer a victory by default and ruled his attorneys had produced “sufficient evidence to justify the award.”

The award included $220,000 for the 22 violations of the agreement. The remaining money requested by Bauer’s attorneys and approved by Crowley covered attorney fees and costs, plus interest on the award.

On Tuesday, after her X account had been deactivated, Hill resumed posting there and acknowledged she had “refused to participate in this suit in any way shape or form.” She nonetheless said she would appeal and “further delay any shot he ever had at getting his career back.”

Wrote Hill: “He will never see a cent from me.”

Lawyers for the six victims say ‘historic’ court decision recognises the plight of survivors who demanded justice for decades.

A top Guatemalan court has sentenced three former paramilitaries to 40 years each in prison after they were found guilty of raping six Indigenous women between 1981 and 1983, one of the bloodiest periods of the Central American nation’s civil war.

The conviction and sentencing on Friday mark another significant step towards attaining justice for the Maya Achi Indigenous women, who were sexually abused by pro-government armed groups, during a period of extreme bloodshed between the military and left-wing rebels that left as many as 200,000 dead or missing.

Former Civil Self-Defence Patrol members Pedro Sanchez, Simeon Enriquez and Felix Tum were found guilty of crimes against humanity for sexually assaulting six members of the Maya Achi group, Judge Maria Eugenia Castellanos said.

“The women recognised the perpetrators, they recognised the places where the events took place. They were victims of crimes against humanity,” she said, praising the women’s bravery in coming to court to testify on repeated occasions.

“They are crimes of solitude that stigmatise the woman. It is not easy to speak of them,” the judge said.

Indigenous lawyer Haydee Valey, who represented the women, said the sentence was “historic” because it finally recognised the struggle of civil war survivors who had demanded justice for decades.

Several Maya Achi women in the courtroom applauded at the end of the trial, where some dressed in traditional attire and others listened to the verdict through an interpreter.

One of the victims, a 62-year-old woman, told the AFP news agency she was “very happy” with the verdict.

Pedro Sanchez, one of the three men convicted, told the court before the sentencing, “I am innocent of what they are accusing me of.”

But Judge Marling Mayela Gonzalez Arrivillaga, another member of the all-women, three-panel court, said there was no doubt about the women’s testimony against the suspects.

The convictions were second in the Maya Achi women’s case against former military personnel and paramilitaries. The first trial, which took place in January 2022, saw five former paramilitaries sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Advocacy group Impunity Watch said the case “highlights how the Guatemalan army used sexual violence as a weapon of war against Indigenous women” during the civil conflict.

In 2016, a Guatemalan court sentenced two former military officers for holding 15 women from the Q’eqchi community, who are also of Maya origin, as sex slaves. Both officers were sentenced to a combined 360 years in prison.

Joel Le Scouarnec tells court he committed ‘despicable act’ in another mass rape case that shocks France.

A French court has sentenced a retired surgeon to 20 years in prison for raping or sexually abusing nearly 300 victims, many of them children under anaesthesia, over 25 years of his career in another case of years-long abuse that has rocked the nation.

The conviction and sentencing on Wednesday in the Brittany court capped what is widely seen as the worst case of abuse of children that has ever gone to trial in modern France.

It comes after 51 men were convicted of taking part in the decade-long mass rape of a woman, Gisele Pelicot, in southern France in what many advocates hoped would be a watershed #MeToo moment for those seeking justice against their abusers.

Throughout the most recent trial, 74-year-old Joel Le Scouarnec admitted to raping or sexually abusing 299 patients – including 256 victims under the age of 15 – as he worked in hospitals in western France.

The attacks took place from 1989 to 2014, many while his patients were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. All told, Le Scouarnec was charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults in the case, which began in February.

Throughout the trial, Le Scouarnec told the court he committed “despicable acts”.

“I owe it to all these people and their loved ones to admit my actions and their consequences, which they’ve endured and will keep having to endure all their lives,” he said at one point.

Victims ‘will never forgive you, never’

But victims, lawyers and advocates who gathered at the courthouse throughout the trial and on Wednesday for the verdict said they put little stock in Le Scouarnec’s words of contrition.

“You are the worst mass paedophile who ever lived,” Thomas Delaby, one of about 60 lawyers representing the victims, said during the trial. He described Le Scouarnec as an “atomic bomb of paedophilia”.

Delaby told Le Scouarnec the victims “will never forgive you, never”.

Le Scouarnec had previously been convicted in 2020 for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces. He was already serving a 15-year sentence as the current trial played out.

The 20-year sentence is the maximum possible. In France, sentences are not served consecutively. In the United States, prosecutors noted, Le Scouarnec would have been sentenced to “2,000 years”.

Questions over public health system

The case has raised questions about France’s publicly run health system and how Le Scouarnec was able to act with impunity for so many years.

Advocates have demanded to know why he was allowed to continue working in public hospitals despite being convicted in 2005 of downloading images of child sexual abuse. At the time, he received a suspended jail sentence.

The extent of Le Scouarnec’s abuse was revealed only after his rearrest in 2017 on suspicion of raping his 6-year-old neighbour.  Police then discovered electronic diaries that appeared to document decades of abuse in painstaking detail.

In his notes, the doctor described himself as a “major pervert” and a “paedophile”.

“And I am very happy about it,” he wrote.

Wednesday’s verdict was handed down during what some hope will be a wider reckoning over sexual abuse in France and what some see as social mores that enable such crimes.

In December, a court in the southern French city of Avignon convicted 51 men of the years-long rape and sexual abuse of Pelicot, who refused to remain anonymous during the proceedings and whose clear-eyed testimony resonated among the French public.

“I’ve decided not to be ashamed, I’ve done nothing wrong,” she testified during the trial. “They are the ones who must be ashamed.”

Among those convicted was Pelicot’s ex-husband, 72-year-old Dominique Pelicot, who prosecutors said orchestrated the drugging and raping of his wife for nearly a decade.

PARIS — French movie star Gérard Depardieu ’s fall from grace is now complete.

Depardieu further moved down from the pinnacle of French cinema Tuesday as he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on the set of a movie in which he starred in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence. He was also fined a total of 29,040 euros (around $32,350), and the court requested that he be registered in the national sex offender database.

The actor, 76, has been convicted of having groped a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant during the filming of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”). The case was widely seen as a key post-#MeToo test of how French society and its film industry address allegations of sexual misconduct involving prominent figures.

Depardieu, who has denied the accusations, didn’t attend the hearing in Paris. Depardieu’s lawyer, Jérémie Assous, said that his client would appeal the decision.

“It is the victory of two women, but it is the victory of all the women beyond this trial,” said Carine Durrieu Diebolt, the set dresser’s lawyer. “Today we hope to see the end of impunity for an artist in the world of cinema. I think that with this decision we can no longer say that he is not a sexual abuser. And today, as the Cannes Film Festival opens, I’d like the film world to spare a thought for Gérard Depardieu’s victims.”

Accused by more than 20 women

Depardieu’s long and storied career — he told the court that he’s made more than 250 films — has turned him into a French movie giant. He was Oscar-nominated in 1991 for his performance as the swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac.

In recent years, the actor has been accused publicly or in formal complaints of misconduct by more than 20 women, but so far only the sexual assault case has proceeded to court. Some other cases were dropped because of a lack of evidence or the statute of limitations.

During the four-day trial in March, Depardieu rejected the accusations, saying he’s “not like that.” He acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualized language on the film set and that he grabbed the set dresser’s hips during an argument, but denied that his behavior was sexual.

The court, composed of a panel of three judges, concluded that Depardieu’s explanations in court were “unpersuasive” and “not credible” and stressed both accusers’ “constant, reiterated and substantiated declarations.”

The court also said that both plaintiffs have been faced with an “aggressive” defense strategy “based on comments meant to offend them.” The judges therefore considered that Depardieu’s lawyer comments in court aggravated the harm to the accusers and justified higher fines.

The two accusers testified in court

The set dresser described the alleged assault, saying the actor pincered her between his legs as she squeezed past him in a narrow corridor.

She said he grabbed her hips then started “palpating” her behind and “in front, around.” She ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area to show what she allegedly experienced. She said he then grabbed her chest.

The woman also testified that Depardieu used an obscene expression to ask her to touch his penis and suggested he wanted to rape her. She told the court that the actor’s calm and cooperative attitude during the trial bore no resemblance to his behavior at work.

The other plaintiff, an assistant, said that Depardieu groped her buttocks and her breasts during three separate incidents on the film set.

The Associated Press doesn’t identify by name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to be named. Neither women has done so in this case.

“I’m very moved,” one of the plaintiffs, the set dresser, told reporters after the verdict. “I’m very very much satisfied with the decision, that’s a victory for me, really, and a big progress, a step forward. I feel justice was made.”

Some expressed support for Depardieu

Some figures in the French cinema world have expressed their support for Depardieu. Actors Vincent Perez and Fanny Ardant were among those who took seats on his side of the courtroom.

French media reported last week that Depardieu was shooting a film directed by Ardant in the Azores archipelago, in Portugal.

The actor may have to face other legal proceedings soon.

In 2018, actor Charlotte Arnould accused him of raping her at his home. That case is still active, and in August 2024 prosecutors requested that it go to trial.

For more than a half-century, Depardieu stood as a towering figure in French cinema, a titan known for his commanding physical presence, instinct, sensibility and remarkable versatility.

A bon vivant who overcame a speech impediment and a turbulent youth, Depardieu rose to prominence in the 1970s and became one of France’s most prolific and acclaimed actors, portraying a vast array of characters, from volatile outsiders to deeply introspective figures.

In recent years, his behavior toward women has come under renewed scrutiny, including after a documentary showed him repeatedly making obscene remarks and gestures during a 2018 trip to North Korea.

Corbet writes for the Associated Press. Samuel Petrequin contributed to this report.

Depardieu is put on the sex offenders list and receives a suspended sentence for groping the women on a film set.

A French court has handed down an 18-month suspended sentence to actor Gerard Depardieu after finding him guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021.

The Paris court announced on Tuesday morning that Depardieu, the 76-year-old who did not attend court for the verdict, would be placed on the sex offenders list.

In one of the country’s highest-profile Me Too cases, Depardieu, a prominent figure of French cinema who has acted in more than 200 films and television series, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The trial relates to charges of sexual assault during the filming in 2021 of Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) directed by Jean Becker.

One of the two plaintiffs, Amelie K, a 54-year-old set decorator, told the court that Depardieu had groped her as he trapped her between his legs and made explicit sexual comments.

“He touched everything, including my breasts,” she said, adding: “I was terrified, he was laughing.”

The second witness, a 34-year-old assistant director who was unnamed, said Depardieu initially assaulted her when she accompanied him from his dressing room to the set.

“It was nighttime … he put his hand on my buttocks,” she said, adding that the actor assaulted her on two other occasions.

Judge Thierry Donard said the actor’s explanation of the events had been unconvincing.

“I’m vulgar, rude, foul-mouthed, I’ll accept that,” Depardieu told the court, but added: “I don’t touch.”

“I adore women and femininity,” he also said, describing the Me Too movement as a “reign of terror”.

Depardieu also argued before the court that he did not consider placing a hand on a person’s bottom to be sexual assault and that some women were too easily shocked.

Amelie K’s lawyer described Tuesday’s ruling as a “beautiful decision” that gave recognition to Depardieu’s victims.

After the sentencing, Depardieu’s lawyer said they would appeal the court decision.

In recent years, the French actor has faced a growing number of sexual assault allegations, with about 20 women coming forward with accusations, but this case was the first to go to court.

The Me Too movement came to prominence in 2017 for people to share their experiences of sexual abuse and sexual harassment by influential figures.