(Nanterre) The former star presenter of the French channel TF1 Patrick Poivre d’Arvor was indicted on Monday for a rape committed in 2009, as part of the judicial investigation opened after a complaint from the author Florence Porcel, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office told AFP on Tuesday evening.
This is the first indictment targeting the former journalist, accused by around twenty women of rape or sexual assault.
Patrick Poivre d’Arvor (nicknamed PPDA), who “firmly contests the alleged facts” according to his lawyers, was also placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for a second fact denounced by the complainant, dating from 2004, said the prosecution. , adding that it was “prescribed”.
The investigating magistrates did not follow the requisitions of the public prosecutor who had requested the dismissal of the two facts, again according to this source. The former presenter has not been placed under judicial supervision, she further indicates.
“Mr. Poivre d’Arvor firmly contests the facts alleged by Madame Porcel as he has done since the first day and has produced numerous material elements contradicting them,” reacted PPDA lawyers, Jacqueline Laffont and Julie Benedetti, in a press release obtained by AFP.
In addition to this procedure, PPDA, 76, is the subject of a preliminary investigation opened in December 2021 in which 22 women were interviewed and in which he has already been questioned by investigators from the Crime Repression Brigade. person (BRDP).
A first preliminary investigation targeting him was opened in February 2021, after the complaint from writer Florence Porcel. The author, aged 40, accuses Patrick Poivre d’Arvor of having forced her into sexual intercourse in 2004 and fellatio in 2009.
Twenty-two other women then testified about rape, sexual assault and/or sexual harassment. In June 2021, the investigations were closed, mainly because the facts reported were time-barred.
Florence Porcel then filed a complaint again, this time with a civil party, to obtain the opening of a new investigation entrusted to investigating judges.
