Accused of rape by a former intern, lawyer Alex Ursulet was indicted on Thursday for “rape by a person in authority” and placed under judicial supervision, a judicial source announced on Friday, confirming information from Mediapart.
A complaint for “rape” and “sexual harassment” was filed on September 25, 2019 by a woman who had completed an internship in the Paris office of this renowned criminal lawyer, former defender of the serial murderer Guy Georges or the former mayor of Grenoble Alain Carignon, in January 2018.
A confrontation with the complainant
In her complaint, she recounts having been raped there by Alex Ursulet, after a lunch where the latter would have been insistent. She produces witness statements and copies of text messages. Me Ursulet had for his part filed a complaint for “slanderous denunciation”, but also for “false” and “attempted fraud in judgment”.
After two days in police custody in June 2020 and a confrontation with the complainant where “everyone (had) remained on their positions”, according to the comment at the time of a source close to the file, the prosecution had opened a judicial investigation for “rape by a person in authority” and asked for his indictment. Alex Ursulet emerged free from the interrogation before the investigating judge, under the status of assisted witness, intermediate between that of a simple witness and that of indictment.
The lawyer removed from the Paris Bar
Thursday’s indictment “is the logically expected continuation of this case. It is important that the judge can continue to conduct her investigation calmly, ”said Me Thibault Laforcade, Bordeaux lawyer for the complainant. “The indictment for rape is in tune with the times. 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 nor anything, it is like that ! “, Criticized Me Marie Burguburu, one of Me Ursulet’s lawyers.
“The advantage is that this indictment gives the defense of Alex Ursulet rights that it did not have before (…) He will therefore finally be able to defend himself”, she added. The Council of the Order, seized of the facts, had expelled him 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.
