The lawyer Juan Branco was indicted on Tuesday for “rape” by a Parisian examining magistrate, confirms this Wednesday a judicial source at Le Parisien, after the revelations of Point.
A woman, 20 years old at the time of the events, had filed a handrail at the police station of the 14th arrondissement of Paris on April 29 after her meeting with Juan Branco following exchanges on the Instagram network. Placed in police custody a month later, the lawyer had mentioned a consensual relationship. During his interrogation, he denied any rape and pointed out inconsistencies in the version of the complainant. “We will demonstrate that the accusations are slander”, react his advisers, Yassine Bouzrou and Françoise Cotta.
At the beginning of June, the young woman indeed returned to one of her statements made to investigators and doctors from the medico-judicial units. Contrary to what she had indicated at first, she finally admitted having had a sexual relationship with another man two days after the rape denounced. She explains that she was “afraid to pass for an easy girl”, ensuring that the rest of her words were “the strict truth”.
“Cold and Troubled”
In a long Facebook post, the lawyer and essayist had denied any forced relationship with the young woman. After a walk in Paris, the couple went to the lawyer’s home, according to his version, then watched a movie before having consensual sex. The next morning, the young woman would have “kissed” him before leaving, still assured the lawyer. She would have returned in the evening “cold and troubled” announcing to him that she had filed a “handrail” on the advice of two friends.
In the daybook, according to Le Point, the young woman claimed to have taken an opiate, lamaline, with Juan Branco. This one had confirmed in the program “Touche pas à mon poste” (C8), by comparing this drug to doliprane.
Juan Branco is particularly known for a bookstore success, the anti-Macron pamphlet “Crépuscule”, published online at the end of 2018 then by Au Diable Vauvert/Massot editions in 2019. He became the lawyer for the Russian artist Piotr Pavlenski in the case of the broadcast in 2020 of the sexual video of the former government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux, then candidate for mayor of Paris.
Juan Branco was placed at the end of January under the status of assisted witness in this investigation. He is also the subject of disciplinary proceedings by the Bar Council in the Griveaux case.
