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Benjamin Mendy on his way to court in Chester, England
Photo:
Paul Currie/EPO
Serious allegations have been made in the trial of football player Benjamin Mendy from the English club Manchester City.
The 28-year-old Frenchman is said to have used his wealth and fame to lure women to his remote estate near Manchester and raped them there.
According to the women concerned, the accused did not accept no during the incidents between 2018 and 2021.
Some of the victims were therefore too drunk to fight back.
"Thanks to Mendy's wealth and status, others were willing to get him what he wanted," prosecutor Timothy Cray said Monday at Chester Crown Court, according to the British newspaper The Guardian. According to the court, the athlete found most women in Manchester nightclubs .
The 41-year-old Louis Saha Matturie is said to have brought them to him.
He is also charged with multiple rapes and other sex offenses.
"Callless Indifference"
Both men are said to have shown "callous indifference" towards the 13 alleged victims.
The Guardian reported that the sexual conquest of young women was a kind of game for them.
Two victims told police they had been passed back and forth between Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie at parties.
Five women said they were only raped by Mendy, and six others blamed Matturie exclusively.
Both men deny a total of 22 charges against them.
Prosecutor Cray described the remote property as a fortress, guarded and far from Manchester city centre.
The women felt they could not escape.
One of the plaintiffs explained that after the sexual assault she had to ask a domestic worker to unlock the outside door for her.
According to police, the women at Mendy's property had to give up their cell phones.
One of the victims is said to have been only 17 at the time of the crime.
Two women said they were raped in locked rooms.
According to the prosecution, both men knew what they were doing.
"Nobody can doubt that no means no nowadays," says Cray.
The process continues.
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