Actor and comedian Ary Abittan obtained a dismissal on Tuesday in the investigations launched after the complaint of a woman who accused him of having raped her in October 2021, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Wednesday April 3, confirming a information from Figaro.
This decision was expected, the actor, aged 50, having obtained in July 2023 the dismissal of his indictment pronounced in November 2021. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Charlotte Plantin, announced that she would appeal the dismissal. .
During the procedure, “there were numerous hearings, expert opinions, confrontations. Nothing was left out,” reacted to Agence France-Presse Me Caroline Toby, lawyer for the actor who notably played in What We Did to the Good Lord? . “I am delighted for Ary Abittan, and I hope that he can finally devote himself to his career, and that cinema will extend its hand to him again,” she added.
Post-traumatic stress
The complainant, who had been seeing the actor for two months at the time of the alleged facts, accuses him of having imposed sodomy on her while they spent the evening at his home on October 30, 2021. She had filed a complaint the same night. During the proceedings, the young woman, aged 23 at the time of the events, described the actor as “obsessed” with the practice of sodomy but clarified that he had, until then, always accepted his refusal. That night, she claims to have first said “no not tonight”, then “screamed in pain” during the act.
In July 2023, “the investigating judge placed Ary Abittan under the status of assisted witness, estimating that there was no longer enough corroborating evidence to justify indictment status”, specified the prosecution . The two investigating judges in charge of the investigations had justified their decision by the absence of “serious or consistent evidence in favor of an act of sexual penetration imposed by violence, coercion, threat or surprise”, according to their order consulted at the time by AFP.
Noting that other elements had been “likely to weaken the probative value of the clues initially retained”, the magistrates had also cited the testimonies of Mr. Abittan’s former girlfriends, who described “a respectful partner” and expert opinions psychiatric and psychological who had not “revealed personality elements in favor of deviant sexuality or aggressive sexual impulses”.
The two judges nevertheless recognized the “indisputable” post-traumatic stress of the complainant.
