Gérard Depardieu to face trial in France over sex assault allegations
Actor Gérard Depardieu was detained and charged over alarming allegations of sexual assault on Monday — the latest of dozens such accusations to plague the French star in recent years.
Depardieu, 75, was taken into custody by Paris police over the allegations from two women who worked with him on 2021 movie “The Green Shutters”.
He was questioned by cops about the allegations and released but Parisienne prosecutors then announced the case will go to trial in October later in the day.
Prosecutors said in a statement Depardieu has been “summoned to appear before the criminal court … for sexual assaults likely to have been committed in September 2021” against two victims.
Although prosecutors did not name the women, actress Carine Durrieu Diebolt filed a complaint with prosecutors office in February claimed Depardieu cornered her in a hallway and groped her on the set of the movie, according to Le Parisien newspaper.
One of the women, who worked with Depardieu on the set of the not-yet-released “The Green Shutters” in 2021, claimed he cornered her in a hallway and groped her.
“He grabbed her, trapped her between his legs and touched her body up to her breasts,” an attorney for the woman told French TV outlet BFMTV, according to the BBC.
“She felt completely powerless, incapable of escaping this trap.”
The 2014 accusation is also related to alleged groping.
Depardieu has not commented on the latest allegations, but last October denied the claims that have arisen against him.
“I have never, ever abused a woman,” he wrote in an open letter published last fall.
The actor, known for his roles in films like “Green Card” and “1492: Conquest of Paradise,” is also facing charges from 2020 alleging he raped actress Charlotte Arnould in 2018 when she was 22. That case is ongoing.
He has also faced allegations from actress Hélène Darras, but legal action was dropped because of the statute of limitations, according to the BBC.
Over a dozen more women have come forward to accuse Depardieu of similar sexual assault allegations.
Reps for Depardieu did not respond to request for comment when contacted by The Post.
Depardieu renounced his French passport and became a Russian national in 2013 after President Vladimir Putin personally signed an order giving him citizenship.
The actor had left France in protest over tax hikes for the wealthy, for which then-French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called him “unpatriotic.”
He returned to his homeland after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
With Post wires
