“Isn't this actually the last erection” by Dominique Pélicot ? The disconcerting plea of ​​his lawyer

This Wednesday, November 27, Dominique Pélicot's lawyer took the stand to defend her client. She tried to present another side of the main accused.

This Wednesday, November 27, the attorneys general ruled on the final submissions against the 51 accused in the Mazan rape trial. With one exception, the sentences requested against the accused are equal to or greater than 10 years in prison. Two days earlier, 20 years of criminal imprisonment were requested against Dominique Pélicot for drugging, raping and handed over his wife to strangers. The defense's pleadings thus began this Wednesday afternoon. They will last until December 13 before a verdict expected around December 20.

Me Béatrice Zavarro pleaded in particular for Dominique Pélicot, who celebrated his 72nd birthday on November 27.  “I hope I found the right words,” she declared before entering the courtroom. She then advanced to the bar by presenting herself as “the devil's advocate”. “I fully, completely assume the defense of Dominique Pélicot because he has placed total and mutual trust in me", she specified as reported by Midi-Libre.

“The other Dominique"

Her goal during this plea: to highlight “the other Dominique Pélicot", understand the man that the accused was before committing the crimes he is accused of, by emphasizing his background. She thus returned to the latter's childhood and the traumas he faced. Me Béatrice Zavarro notably cited “a rape in the hospital at the age of 8" and a “construction site rape at the age of 14". She also spoke about the violence her mother suffered before her eyes. “The images are of her mother with her arms tied behind her back being forced by her father to perform fellatio and undergo sodomy,” she described.

The lawyer then mentioned Dominique Pélicot as a husband. “Mrs. Pélicot, with a fairness that must be acknowledged, said that she was dealing with a man who was good, who was a good husband, a good father, a good grandfather. Indeed, she could not reproach Dominique Pelicot for anything at that time,” she insisted. She also insisted on the sincere love that Dominique Pélicot felt for his wife, before he committed the unthinkable. “From 2010/2011 you have two beings who will evolve on very different terrains. Madame [Pélicot], who will devote herself to her grandmotherly activities and he who will take refuge in his fantasies and who will give birth to his criminal scheme,” she recounted.

The shift into perversity

The lawyer also tried to explain her client's actions. She reported that Dominique Pélicot had explained that he liked to “see his wife having fun with someone else, to see her touched by someone else”. Me Béatrice Zavarro also said that she spoke with a sexologist who, faced with the evolution of Dominique Pélicot's behavior, affirmed that “sex in a man is proof of the persistence of his virility”. As he gets older, his deviances are increasing.” An argument put forward as a possible explanation for the accused's actions. The lawyer continued along these lines, concluding with a sentence that did not go unnoticed: “This presence, this file, is it not in fact his last erection ? [Dominique Pélicot] knows very well that he will no longer be able to do anything about it the future.