AGNEL. This Thursday, December 8, 2022, The Team reveals several elements of the investigation into Yannick Agnel, indicted for rape. At the same time, RTL announces that a second potential victim has been interviewed.
A year later, Yannick Agnel is again in turmoil. The former French swimming champion sees justice continue its investigations in the case of accusations of rape of a minor of which he is the subject. Indicted in December 2021, the former swimmer could face new prosecution after the hearing of a second potential victim, revealed by RTL. According to the radio, it is again a young girl, aged under 15 at the time of the facts she recounted: those of touching, without any notion of rape. Sufficient to be reprehensible in the eyes of the law. The dating of the remarks is not known, but the young girl was heard by the Mulhouse investigators. It would be a potential victim from the family circle of the double Olympic champion.
The Parisian had already echoed these suspicions, in June 2022, indicating that the swimmer would have spoken about it himself during his hearing. It would be a flirtation with a minor, therefore, during an evening ended in the same sleeping bag. Yannick Agnel would then have touched the teenager. Facts which would therefore have just added to the first case in which he recognized the “materiality of the facts”, for which he was indicted, and of which The Teamthis Thursday, December 8, 2022, delivers enlightening underwear.
What is the charge of rape against Yannick Agnel?
The facts date back to around 2016 when the swimmer belonged to the Mulhouse swimming club. At the time, the swimmer was trained by Lionel Horter. His daughter also swims at this same club. She was then 13 years old. Yannick Agnel and the young girl are then dating. According to a survey conducted by French Radioeverything would have started on December 31, 2015, when a kiss was exchanged between the two, in the apartment of the double Olympic champion.
Sexual intercourse followed, at the teenager’s home where Yannick Agnel later settled in order to be more supervised by his trainer, but also in Thailand, during an internship organized in January. and February 2016. According to the account of the alleged victim, revealed by The Team, “we were in a hotel, the rooms were close. In general, he told me to come by SMS after eating.” Facts that also took place in Rio, during the 2016 Olympics. As for the sexual intercourse in question, Yannick Agnel swears that there were only “exchanges of caresses, mutual masturbation” according to the sports daily, when the complainant asserts that it went further.
Yannick Agnel indicted
All these facts were recounted in a complaint filed by the daughter of Lionel Horter during the summer of 2021. After investigations, Yannick Agnel was placed in police custody on December 9, 2021, in the premises of the Territorial Directorate of the judicial police, as part of a judicial investigation for “rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor”. During his hearing, the swimmer recognized “the materiality of the facts”, without having “the feeling that there was constraint”. He was thus indicted but left free, under judicial control: prohibition to leave the inner suburbs of Paris, to go to Mulhouse, unless summoned by a court, to get in touch with the family of the victim, nor with his agent. , Sophie Kamoun.
Scoring as a line of defense
An agent, executive of the French swimming world, who tried to influence Yannick Agnel. It is to her that the swimmer turns, in December 2021, when he is in turmoil in the face of the accusation of rape of which he is the subject. The plaintiff: N. Horter, the daughter of Lionel Horter, ex-trainer of Agnel at the Mulhouse swimming club, chaired by his brother, Franck Horter. As part of the investigations, Yannick Agnel’s telephone line was tapped. In one of the conversations with Sophie Kamoun, transcribed by The Team, the respondent admits having “a mini-love affair”, “something that I could not assume, because she was a minor.” He claims not to have had sex with the teenager at the time, but confides “touching.”
It is from there that Sophie Kamoun gives her vision of things on the attitude to adopt, after Yannick Agnel affirmed that the plaintiff did not have written proof: “I think that the best line of defense is to say, ‘Another Horter family stunt’. You can’t help but deny. There will always be doubt, never proof.” Why take it out on the girl’s family? Yannick Agnel has been in conflict for several years with the Mulhouse swimming club because of salaries that had not been paid to him in 2012: €60,000 that the Mulhouse court forced the club to pay, despite the appeal . The management of the club and its finances had also been singled out in an investigation by French Radio. For the agent, it is a settling of scores.
Pressure on auditioned swimmers
In telephone exchanges with Sophie Kamoun, Yannick Agnel confides “tremble” since 2016, for fear that the case will spring into the public square. Dry response from the one he calls “mother-in-law”: “You don’t give a fuck, you have nothing to do with your conscience, she was consenting! […] She’ll have it on her conscience for the rest of her life! Accusing someone of rape when she consented, oh! […] Are you kidding or what?” But facing the investigators, Yannick Agnel cracks and recognizes touching.
During the investigations, other swimmers were interviewed. None seemed surprised by the facts, says The Team. However, pressure would have been exerted by Sophie Kamoun on these swimmers so that no negative remarks were made against Yannick Agnel in front of the investigators, affirming, implicitly, that she could make and break careers as a result. “I reacted, at the time, in an epidermal way”, she replied to The Team.