“RAPIST MAKER”
Prosecutors have requested a 16-year jail term for Jerome V, a 46-year-old who also sought to take part in the abuse six times.
His lawyer Gaele Guenoun warned the court against making an example of her client.
She said Jerome V, a grocery store employee, had admitted to rape during his six visits and apologised to Gisele Pelicot.
But, she argued, he had “fallen into Dominique Pelicot’s net”, describing the main defendant as a “rapist maker”.
The attorney of another co-defendant Redouane A., who has rejected accusations he committed rape during his two visits, asked for him to be acquitted instead of jailed for 12 years as requested by the prosecution.
Henri Amr spoke of his 40-year-old client’s “emotional, social and sexual misery”.
He said the defendant – who he described as “psychotic” and having suffered from “mental retardation” since childhood – had been “manipulated” by Dominique Pelicot after meeting him online into believing he was taking part in a couple’s fantasy.
“Doped up on pornographic images, this man believed him. He believed him and returned a second time,” he said.
Lead prosecutor Laure Chabaud last week rejected this argument of so-called consent by proxy as one “from another era”.
