Lawyer Alex Ursulet, accused of rape by a former trainee, was indicted on Thursday for “rape by a person in authority” and placed under judicial control, AFP learned on Friday from a judicial source, confirming information from Mediapart. This renowned criminal lawyer, known for his defense of the serial murderer Guy Georges or the former mayor of Grenoble Alain Carignon, has been targeted since September 25, 2019 by a complaint for “rape” and “sexual harassment” filed by a woman who had completed an internship in his Paris office in January 2018.
During a lunch
In her complaint, she recounts having been raped there by Alex Ursulet, after a lunch where the latter would have been insistent, witness statements and copies of text messages in support. Me Ursulet had, for his part, filed a complaint for “slanderous denunciation”, but also for “false” and “attempted fraud in judgment”.
A confrontation between Me Ursulet and the complainant had already taken place in June 2020. “Everyone (had) remained on their positions”, according to the comment, at the time, from a source familiar with the matter. The prosecution then opened a judicial investigation for “rape by a person in authority” and asked for his indictment.
An indictment in “the air of time” for the defense
Thursday’s indictment is therefore “the logically expected continuation of this case”, told AFP Me Thibault Laforcade, Bordeaux lawyer for the complainant. A decision “in tune with the times” for one of Me Ursulet’s lawyers, Me Marie Burguburu. “It does not matter that there is no new element for eighteen months or countless contradictions and impossibilities, it does not matter that nothing justifies this indictment, neither the urgency nor the file or nothing, it is like that!”, She criticized before concluding: “The advantage is that this indictment gives the defense of Alex Ursulet rights that it did not have before (… ) So he will finally be able to defend himself.”
The Council of the order, seized of the facts, had struck off Me Ursulet from the Paris bar on December 31, 2019. A hearing on the appeal of this decision will take place on January 20 next at the Paris Court of Appeal.
