The elected centrist who accused the Minister of Solidarity Damien Abad of having tried to rape her in 2010 filed a complaint Monday, June 27 with the Paris prosecutor's office, according to information from Mediapart confirmed by Le Parisien.
At the investigation site, the politician, renamed Laëtitia to preserve her anonymity, indicates that she wants to "encourage the victims to free their speech" by bringing the case to justice.
In mid-June, she had denounced sexual assault and harassment by Damien Abad during a wedding in Aveyron, in the summer of 2010, but also an attempted rape during a party at the home of the former Republican, in Paris, in the first half of that same year.
Accusations "categorically"
refuted by the current minister, who had denounced the "carefully chosen schedule of these publications" and the "partiality" of the Mediapart investigation.
"If I speak, it's to make it stop"
“If I speak, it is so that it stops, that he cannot start again”, had indicated the alleged victim.
She told Mediapart that she had tried to "forget all that" for ten years, but the accounts of the two other women on alleged acts of rape dating back to 2010 and 2011 and published on the investigation site in May, the filled with "guilt".
The minister had “also firmly denied these two accusations, highlighting in particular his disability.
“It is physically impossible for me to commit the acts described,” he assured.
Read alsoDamien Abad: what we know about the accusations of sexual violence against the new minister
If the alleged acts of sexual assault and harassment suffered by the elected are prescribed, her lawyer, Raphaële Bialkiewicz, estimates with the newspaper that the attempted rape that her client denounces is not.
“This is a complaint for attempted rape, the statute of limitations is therefore the same as for rape, ie 20 years.
The facts having been committed in 2010, my client can file a complaint until 2030, ”explains the lawyer.
Eight witness statements and elements noted by a bailiff
The elected official's complaint, which Mediapart was able to consult, is supported by eight statements from witnesses or confidants (such as her doctor, relatives, friends or other elected officials), messages and elements noted by a bailiff, and a attestation from Chloé, another complainant who accuses Damien Abad of rape, and whom Laëtitia does not know.
In 2010, Laëtitia first described an “unhealthy” and sexist climate at the federation of Young Centrists in her department, which she chaired.
Damien Abad, who was then the national president, had just been elected European deputy.
“It twisted.
He fell into a feeling of permanent omnipotence and impunity,” she says.
She assures that he had become "sticky", offering her "one-on-one night visits" which she says she declined, and that he sometimes rubbed his arms and hands on her breasts when kiss him.
Not "the slightest doubt" of an "intention of penetration", for the lawyer
During a festive evening in 2010 at Damien Abad's, the latter would have offered her a glass at the bottom of which she said she had "seen something".
Suspicious, she would have gone to the bathroom to spit out her sip and it was on leaving that she would have discovered that Abad was waiting for her “behind the door”.
The deputy would then have pushed her into a room, uttered “insanities” and pushed the head of the young woman towards her crotch.
"His penis had not come out, but his pants were open," she told our colleagues.
She claims to have been “surprised” by the strength of the deputy and to have struggled.
He would then have "completely reversed the roles", posing as the victim.
Laëtitia explains that she was able to leave the room thanks to the appearance of a guest.
The story of this elected centrist was supported by the testimonies of eight people, to whom she had confided or who had been able to attend certain elements that she describes, indicates Mediapart.
In the complaint filed on June 27, consulted by our colleagues, Laëtitia's lawyer believes that "the intention of a minimum oral penetration, imposed by Mr. Abad on the complainant by force" would not make "the slightest doubt" .