Luc Besson, French Director, Won’t Be Charged After Rape Accusation

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/movies/luc-besson-accusation-no-charges.html

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PARIS — The authorities here said on Monday that the French film director Luc Besson would face no charges after a nine-month inquiry into an actress’s accusations that he had raped her.

An official at the Paris prosecutor’s office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with official policy, said that “numerous investigations” by the Paris police couldn’t show that Mr. Besson, 59, had coerced the Dutch-Belgian actress Sand Van Roy into unwanted sex.

Ms. Van Roy, a 28-year-old actress who filed a lawsuit against Mr. Besson in May and a second one in July, accused him of raping her on at least four occasions, and said he once injured her “to the point of bleeding.” In an interview with The New York Times in July, she described a two-year-long “abusive” relationship with Mr. Besson and said she was afraid to turn down his advances out of fear that it would hurt her career.

According to the first lawsuit, Ms. Van Roy told the police in May on the day after the sexual contact that she said made her bleed: “I’m afraid he might kill me, he is a psychopath.”

Mr. Besson was the first prominent figure in the French film industry to face accusations of sexual misconduct in the wake of the #MeToo revelations. A total of nine women, including actresses, a former casting director and colleagues of Mr. Besson, have described inappropriate behavior by him to the investigative website Mediapart, but only Ms. Van Roy filed a lawsuit. After the decision by the Paris prosecutor’s office, her lawsuits will be closed without further action.

Ms. Van Roy started her career as a model and later became a stand-up comedian before turning to film acting. She said she first met Mr. Besson in 2015 as she auditioned for a part in his film “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” and after she obtained a small role in the movie, the two became acquainted over meetings for tea at a luxury hotel in Paris.

Ms. Van Roy told the police that Mr. Besson began approaching her sexually during the shooting of “Valerian,” and that although she was reluctant, she didn’t shun him.

But the sexual contact became rougher, she told the police in May. Ms. Van Roy told The Times that she had found Mr. Besson penetrating her on two occasions while she was asleep, and that he had once refused to use protection despite her requests.

Ms. Van Roy also shot scenes to appear in Mr. Besson’s upcoming movie “Anna,” but her role in the cast became unclear after she filed the lawsuits. The film’s release in 2019 has been delayed after Mr. Besson’s company, EuropaCorp, shut down its in-house distribution business.

Among the other women who have made allegations against Mr. Besson, an actress in her 40s who wanted to remain anonymous told the French police this month that the filmmaker had thrown himself on her and tried to kiss her by force in Paris in March 2002. The Paris prosecutor’s office said an additional preliminary investigation had been opened into those accusations. The actress told Mediapart that she didn’t file a complaint because the statute of limitations for sexual assault is six years in France.

Thierry Marembert, Mr. Besson’s lawyer, said on Monday that his client had always denied Ms. Van Roy’s accusations. “This decision comes after a very complete investigation, to which he has fully cooperated,” Mr. Marembert wrote in a release sent to the news service Agence France-Presse.

Ms. Van Roy’s lawyer, Francis Szpiner, wrote on Twitter that he would soon file a new complaint against Mr. Besson. Under French law, if a complaint filed with prosecutors is dropped — as was the case on Monday — the plaintiff, under certain conditions, can file a new complaint that automatically hands over the case to independent investigative judges. Such action also enables the plaintiff to seek both civil and criminal action.