The French footballer was tried on Friday not guilty of six rapes and sexual assault. A new trial will take place in June for another rape and an attempted rape.
by Eric Albert (London, Correspondence)
When the jury gave up his verdict, the charm after the count, Benjamin Mendy covered his hands with his hands. Five months after the start of his trial, almost a year and a half after the start of the investigation, the French footballer, 28, was found not guilty of six rape accusations and sexual assault on Friday January 13, at the Chester court, near Manchester (Great Britain). The members of the jury, on the other hand, have failed to agree on two other charges, rape and an attempted rape. These two facts will be retained from June 26, in a new trial planned to last two to three weeks.
“Mr. Mendy is delighted to have been declared unanimously not guilty in eight of the ten accusations he faced and it is impatient to whiten his name about the other two accusations, in order to be able to rebuild his life,” Declared Jenny Wiltshire, his lawyer.
Former 2018 world champion, during a tournament in Russia where he had stayed on the replacement bench, Benjamin Mendy saw his career suddenly interrupted in August 2021. The police had just put him for four rapes and Sexual assault. His club had suspended him in stride.
These first indictments then made snowball. Several new women had filed a complaint against him. In total, Benjamin Mendy had been indicted ten times, for eight rapes, an attempted rape and a sexual assault against seven different women, between 2018 and 2021.
VIP of nightclubs
Listen to the prosecutor during the trial, the footballer was a “predator” who had set up a system of folding young women at home. The tumor, still according to the accusation, was Louis Saha Matturie, 41, himself initially indicted for eight rapes and four sexual assaults against eight women. Friday, the latter was found not guilty of three of these rapes, but the members of the jury did not manage to agree on three accusations of rape and three sexual assaults.
A large part of the facts was not debated. Mr. Mendy liked to party. Very often, with the help of Mr. Matturie, to which he paid an apartment, he started the evening in the VIP squares of the Manchester night boxes, paying the bill for all. Then he brought young women back to his luxurious villa in the great suburbs of Manchester. The average age of complainants at the time of the facts was just below 21.
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