Interior designer, 37 years old, 1m78, seductive gaze ... On paper, Anthony Laroche ticked all the boxes to coax the dozens of women accosted online. After several weeks of virtual exchanges, he invited them to join him in the darkness of his room, blindfolded, in order to continue the celebrations. But behind the beautiful and young Apollo was actually hiding Jack Sion, a 68-year-old man, "
paunchy
" and "
balding
". For having implemented this stratagem, the person concerned is tried from Monday before the departmental criminal court of Montpellier in order to respond to three cases of "
rape by surprise
". The case changed the legal texts on this offense, the contours of which were blurred at the time.
Read alsoA sexagenarian usurped the photo of a model to seduce women on the web
It was a complaint filed in July 2014 in Nice which alerted the authorities.
A 33-year-old young woman comes to the police station to file a rape complaint against a certain Anthony Laroche, whom she had met on a dating site a month and a half before.
She was then just recovering from a previous breakup and the man was able to establish a climate of trust.
Despite her reluctance, the complainant accepts an invitation to her home, where she must submit to a somewhat peculiar erotic scenario: entering her apartment, she is asked to remove her clothes, to blindfold her eyes and then to join him. in the room, plunged into darkness.
There, she is tied to the bar of the bed and is strictly forbidden to touch her partner.
It is only at the end of the act that she finally removes the blindfold.
There, before his eyes, an "
old man with wrinkled skin
"
appears
.
She flees and discovers two names on the letterbox: "SION - LAROCHE".
A "
disgusting
"
old man
Immediately, the police made a connection with two other complaints, filed in 2009 and 2013 for similar facts, but which did not, at the time, give rise to prosecution. The respondent is arrested while his apartment is searched. The blindfold, the links used during lovemaking and a computer containing photos of naked women are found.
Above all, the investigators get their hands on a notebook with the contact details of 342 women. Contacted one by one, they tell the story of a similar experience lived in the twilight of this apartment on the Promenade des Anglais. Each paints a startling portrait of this "
disgusting
old man with glasses
"
who, once unmasked, hid his face, repeating fearfully "
no, no, no
". Most evoke the same feeling of revulsion, one says having "
felt like throwing up and washed herself with bleach
", a second confides having been "
frightened, humiliated, soiled and greatly destroyed by this story.
". "
He's my father's age
», Horrifies a third.
Others admit on the contrary to have fallen under the influence of the avatar of Anthony Laroche and to have continued to frequent him in spite of the lie.
Legislative gray area
In custody, Jack Sion, he does not waver. He acknowledges that the photo used on dating sites is actually that of a model retrieved from the Marlboro brand clothing site. But the 68-year-old retired advertiser refutes the accusations and maintains that they were only “
little games wanted by the internet, on both sides.
"
These people could see who they were dealing with at any time
," he says. “
I have never forced or forced anyone.
"Very sure of himself, the respondent repeats that"
a rape is when you force someone, that you force him, that we threaten him.
"
At the time, there was still a gray area in the law in the definition of “
rape by surprise
”. And this vagueness initially benefited Jack Sion. Indeed, the investigating judge retained this qualification in January 2018 to refer him to an assize court. But this decision was overturned by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, which considered that "
the elements constituting the crime of rape were not met, in the absence of violence, threat, constraint or surprise , the complainants having adhered to the scenario put in place.
"
It was not until February 2019, for the Court of Cassation, the highest court of the judicial order, to rule in the opposite direction: "
the use of a stratagem intended to conceal the identity and the physical characteristics of its author to surprise the consent of a person and to obtain from him an act of sexual penetration constitutes the surprise
”, one can read in the judgment.
"
The Nobel Prize for flirting
"
During his trial, which is due to end on Friday, the debates will therefore focus on the very definition of consent to the sexual act, without hiding the troubled personality of the accused. Described by a loved one as "
the world champion or the Nobel Prize for flirting,
" Jack Sion, now 74, has been married three times and has never looked after his only child.
The accused has a “
narcissistic personality
” and reproduces, according to experts, “
notable perverse behavior.
»Who of Jack Sion or Anthony Laroche will try to proclaim his innocence?
For one of the civil parties, the answer has already been found: “
I never gave my consent to this man.
I had given it to Anthony Laroche, not to Jack Sion.
"
