French Retiree on Trial for Recruiting Men to Rape His Drugged Wife

A 71-year-old French retiree, Dominique P., is set to go on trial on Monday, accused of recruiting dozens of strangers online to rape his wife while she was heavily sedated. The case has shocked the country, with prosecutors alleging that the husband, a former employee at France’s power utility EDF, drugged his wife and then used the internet to recruit men to have sex with her.

The woman, now in her 70s, was not aware of the abuse and has no recollection of the rapes, which occurred over a period of 10 years. Her lawyers have described the trial as a "horrible ordeal" for her, and she has chosen not to be identified.

The trial is set to run until December and will hear evidence from 72 men, aged between 21 and 68, who are accused of participating in the rapes. The men, who included a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, a company boss, and a journalist, were recruited through a website called coco.fr, which has since been shut down by police.

The accused rapists, who claim they were simply helping a libertine couple live out their sexual fantasies, will have to establish what they knew about the situation when they had sex with the woman, who was in a state that experts have described as "closer to a coma than to sleep".

The husband, Dominique P., has admitted to investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquilizers, including the anxiety-reducing drug Temesta, and then recruited men to have sex with her. He has also been charged with a 1991 murder and rape, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999, to which he admitted after conclusive DNA testing.

Psychiatric evaluations have described Dominique P. as a "patriarch" and "manipulator" with a "perverse" personality who used his wife as "bait". The trial is expected to be a difficult and emotional ordeal for all parties involved.

Original Article Source: AFP