The 51 accused in the Mazan rape case appear before the Vaucluse Court of Arbitration in Avignon on Monday, September 2, 2024, in a trial that will run until December 13. Between 2011 and 2020, 92 incidents of rape were committed against the same victim by more than 80 men, 50 of whom are now on trial. Only one man orchestrated this abuse: Dominique P. For 10 years, the latter drugged his wife to hand her over to accomplices.
I'm a firefighter, handyman, ex-policeman, electrician or even a journalist. Their names are Paul, Quentin, Patrice, Thierry, Saifeddine, Ludovick, Joseph or Redouan. They are between 21 and 68 years old. Their appearance is ordinary, their life orderly. Most are in relationships or even fathers. At the preliminary inquest, some of their companions described them as “loving” husbands with “normal sexual practices”. Their criminal record is clean. They do not suffer from any notable psychological pathology according to the experts involved in the investigation. However, one characteristic stands out in each of them: a sense of “omnipotence” over the female body.
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He drugged his wife and raped her by strangers for 10 years: 51 accused will be tried in Avignon
They appear today before the Vaucluse court in Avignon in the Mazan rape case. Their figures blend into each other in the accused box – which had to be enlarged because there were so many of them. Ordinary figures. “There is no typical profile of the rapist. The rapist is Mr. Everyman,” diagnoses the sociologist specializing in sexual violence Véronique Le Goaziou on their topic.
“Patriarch”, “manipulator”, “pervert”
The 50 defendants in the Mazan rape case are accused of committing one or more acts of abuse against a single woman. Reduced to an unconscious state by her husband, who administered chemicals – xanax, valium – to put her to sleep, the latter was delivered to their marital bed. An appointment was made between the husband and his accomplices through the website coco.gg. Between 2011 and 2022, for almost 10 years, 92 incidents of rape were committed against the victim. “The first reaction that will come out of many people's mouths will be: 'he's seriously ill, he's crazy'. I'm not at all sure. The part of the perpetrators of rape for whom we manage to diagnose a real mental pathology is minuscule”, estimates Mrs. Le Goaziou about the main accused . Now 71 years old, Dominique P., a former EDF employee, does not suffer from “any psychic pathology or abnormality” but from “sexual deviance or paraphilia of the voyeuristic type”, according to several psychiatric examinations carried out during the investigation. He is described as a “patriarch”, “manipulator” with a “perverse” personality, using his wife as “bait”.
Accused in two other cases
Dominique P. fell into the spotlight in 2020. Caught filming under the dresses of customers in a supermarket by a security guard, the latter was detained by the police. A search of his home followed to analyze his computer equipment. The investigators then discovered video files in which we see strangers abusing an unconscious woman – the wife of the accused. From there, around fifty defendants were identified, most of them from the area around Mazan, the village where the couple lived.
Since January 2023, Dominique P. has been indicted by the Nanterre prosecutor's office for two separate cases: attempted rape, as well as rape and intentional homicide of the same victim. The facts date back to 1991. The defendant allegedly raped and then killed a young woman after chemically subduing her with ether.
One and the same victim
The victim of 92 rapes committed over nearly 10 years while in a state of chemical submission, the victim faced real trauma once the affair was revealed. The latter would have no memory of the abuse suffered. His lawyer did not respond to requests from our colleagues at 20 minutes. The victim's daughter, the author of the book And I stopped calling you father (Lattès, 2022) will be among the civil parties.
51 accused, 60 lawyers
The process that opens today is of a magnitude rarely seen. Around sixty lawyers will parade there, as well as a multitude of journalists from 36 media institutions. A second courtroom was set up to broadcast the proceedings to the press and public.
The accused were divided into eight groups. For a month, pleas will follow each other, followed by four days to deliberate on each of the 51 accused. The verdict will be handed down on December 13, after a four-month trial.