The Paris prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said that French actor Gerard Depardieu was in December last year charged with rape and sexual assault after authorities revived a 2018 investigation that was initially dropped.
Depardieu was not detained when he was handed the preliminary charges on Dec. 16 last year, the office said.
The prosecutor’s office addressed the charges after the case was leaked to the media.
Photo: AFP
Media reports have said that the charges relate to allegations made by an actress in her 20s that date back to 2018.
An initial inquiry against the star was dropped in 2019 because of lack of evidence, but was later revived.
French newspaper Le Parisien and broadcaster BFM TV said that the woman alleged that Depardieu assaulted her on Aug. 7 and Aug. 13, 2018, at his home in Paris.
The two met when Depardieu led a master class at her school, BFM TV reported.
The actress, who has not been named, first filed a complaint with details of alleged rape and assault in August 2018 in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence.
The probe was taken over by Paris investigators, but was soon dropped.
Depardieu’s lawyer, Herve Temime, was not immediately available for comment, but he has previously said that the actor “absolutely denies any rape, any sexual assault, any crime.”
Depardieu, 72, is among France’s most well-known and controversial stars.
He has appeared in 200 films over six decades and is among a few French actors who have made a name for themselves in Hollywood.
He won a Golden Globe for his performance in Green Card, a 1990 English-language romantic comedy costarring Andie MacDowell.
His first big hit in France was Les Valseuses (Going Places), Bertrand Blier’s classic farce about two wandering thugs.
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