A lawyer from the Toulouse bar is suspected of rape and sexual assault. The Public Prosecutor’s Office received six complaints and a judicial investigation was opened in Montauban in early 2022.
On the Instagram account “Balance your law firm”, the testimonies are multiplying and speech is freeing up. This page allows victims of aggression or harassment in offices throughout France to share their painful experiences. Among the publications, that of a woman who, in 2019, was a legal assistant in a Toulouse firm.
She writes about a lawyer: “The following week, I arrive at the office with a black blouse, to which he says ‘Oh what a beautiful blouse’. OK, I’m not picking up. An hour later he comes to my office and slips his hand into my shirt. I take his hand away and say ‘no’.” A few days later, he sends her a text when she is not working: “Tomorrow afternoon, I would have preferred to come and take a nap at your place.“Pasting on the cheek, inappropriate gestures and texts, but it doesn’t stop there.
At the end of the meal, we go to the office, and while his wife calls the elevator, he comes to my colleague and me, he lifts my dress and slips his hand into it while thrusting his tongue into my colleague’s mouth. We were paralyzed. His wife was behind.
Testimony of a complainant on Instagram
Initially, two complaints were filed against this Toulouse lawyer. Followed, at the beginning of 2022, by four new complaints. Questioned by La Dépêche, the public prosecutor of Toulouse confirms: “A total of six young women, who collaborated with the suspect as an intern or assistant, filed a complaint. And two of them are civil parties“.
To At the end of December, the lawyer was placed in police custody for several hours. He would not have admitted the facts of which he is accused. Maître Pierre Alfort, who assisted the suspect during his interrogation, was not aware of the latest complaints filed: “With Me Alexandre Martin, we reserve the right to file a complaint for slanderous denunciation“, while explaining that his client “wants to fight, counter-attack“. He returns in particular to the case of a former collaborator who accuses the lawyer of rape: “Alleged victim tells us she slept with him for six months but can’t remember the day she was raped.”
An investigation was opened at the beginning of the year by the prosecutor. Since then, the investigations have been relocated to the Montauban prosecutor’s office. The suspect was not summoned by the investigating judge and no indictment was pronounced.