The director of “La Belle époque” and “Mascarade” appeared before the Paris court this Thursday, February 8, 2024. His trial was finally postponed until next September.
Summoned this Thursday, February 8 by the Paris criminal court to respond to accusations of “sexual assault while drunk”, Nicolas Bedos will still have to await his judgment. The trial was finally postponed until September 2024, an outcome expected by the various parties. The Paris court decided to postpone the trial “to bring together the three cases in which he is being prosecuted”, Libération informs us. The plaintiff’s counsel, Me Tewfik Bouzenoune, believes that this referral “makes sense” in the columns of the newspaper, adding that “this allows [sa] client not to be alone”. The latter would be “relieved” by this decision”.
The French director has been the target of a complaint from a 25-year-old young woman since June 12, 2023. She accuses him of having “slid his hand to his private parts, over his pants” during a evening in a nightclub, on the night of June 1 to 2, 2023. This first testimony opened the door to other accusations against the filmmaker a few weeks later, which will also be studied during the September trial.
Nicolas Bedos does not remember the facts and confided to investigators that “if this gesture existed”, it “can only be accidental”. His lawyer, Me Julia Minkowski, assured Le Monde that “such a gesture (…) could only have been accidental under the influence of intoxication.” Nicolas Bedos’ partner, Pauline Desmonts, publicly defended him on the set of Quelle époque, on January 21. “Yes he can be obnoxious, excessive, provocative, but he is not a sexual attacker (…) We are talking about a problem of excess partying, alcohol, in a festive setting.” The director affirms that this affair has “accelerated this awareness (in him) and it is a problem that he is in the process of treating”.
A second trial in September
Nicolas Bedos will have to go to court again on September 26, 2024. He will be tried there for “sexual assault by a person in a state of obvious intoxication” and for “sexual harassment”. In the first case, we will therefore find the first of the complainants, on the stand this Thursday, February 8, but also another accuser who denounces a non-consensual kiss on the neck after he forcibly grabbed her by the waist in a nightclub on the night of May 11 to 12, 2023. The third accuses the 44-year-old filmmaker of having engaged in “behavior insistent and offensive for which Nicolas Bedos had apologized” during an evening in June 2018.
Two other women, who had testified against the behavior of Nicolas Bedos in a Médiapart investigation published in July 2023, were heard by investigators as part of an investigation opened for rape and sexual assault. Their cases were dismissed due to the statute of limitations, specifies Me Minkowski.