The council of the president of the CNC, indicted after accusations launched by his godson, judges “serious” the inaccuracies contained in the order signed by the magistrate.
The lawyer for Dominique Boutonnat, president of the National Cinema Center (CNC), denounced Saturday to AFP “false claimscontained in the order sending his client to trial for sexual assault.
Aged 52, Dominique Boutonnat is accused by his godson of sexual assault during a stay in Greece in 2020. He was then 21 years old. From the beginning, the president of the CNC has mentioned “consensual kisses», «gestures of affection that he stopped when he felt from his godson that this gesture could have degenerated into something else“says his lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny. Contacted Thursday by AFP, the council had not yet had access to the order. Since then, he has risen up againstthis order, which is based on false assertions by the magistrate“. “The order lends remarks to Mr. Boutonnat that he never made and who even declared the opposite“, insisted Me Marsigny.
“A second father”
In February 2021, Dominique Boutonnat was indicted for attempted rape and sexual assault. On Wednesday, the investigating judge ordered that he appear for sexual assault, not retaining the count of attempted rape. According to elements of his prescription of which the AFP has knowledge, a psychological expertise of the godson showed the “traumatic consequences” of this night of August 3, 2020 and did not reveal any “tendency to disguise reality“.
Read alsoSexual assault: Dominique Boutonnat, boss of the National Cinema Center, sent back to the judges
For the judge, Dominique Boutonnat recognized “physical contact with his godson“but he disputed it”both the extent and the sexual connotation“. She also points out,the ascendancy exercised» by the godfather on his godson, the latter considering him «like a second father“. And the president of the CNC does not dispute “not at all the kisses given to his godson nor the fact of lying naked in his bed, of which he knew the inexperience in sexual matters and the homosexual orientation of the latter“, according to the order.
An analysis that Me Marsigny vigorously disputes: his client has never admitted to lying naked in his godson’s bed, he says. During his confrontation with his godson in March 2022, which AFP was able to consult, he indicated that he was “in underwear“, according to the defense. “The fact of writing that he would have admitted to being naked when he never said so is serious and is intended to give credibility to the accusation of my client’s sexual desires“says Mr. Marsigny. Contacted, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office could not be reached immediately.
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