2023-10-07 06:45:00
His wife and two sons, first, his friends then, and finally his work. These are Charles Innocenti’s three keys to happiness. The three pillars of his life. At 41, the owner and chef of a renowned and successful restaurant in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) has everything going for him. This fulfilled man with broad shoulders and a charming smile nevertheless carries within him a wound linked to an old and painful story, which he kept secret for a very long time and which only a handful of close friends know. With courage and a desire for transparency, the forty-year-old decided to confront these ghosts once and for all.
“The trauma remains anchored in me,” confides Charles Innocenti, who accuses his former singing teacher of having imposed “repeated sexual assaults” on him between 1998 and 2000, when he was 16 and 17 years old, during private lessons. at the Salle Pleyel, in Paris (8th arrondissement). The alleged facts are prescribed under criminal law. His lawyer, Me Rachel-Flore Pardo, of the Oplus law firm, therefore summoned the professor of vocal technique, JL, before the Nanterre judicial court (Hauts-de-Seine).
Objective: for justice to declare this 70-year-old man civilly responsible. The Oplus firm has already obtained such a judgment – a first – last November with the civil conviction of the author of prescribed sexual assault on a minor (he appealed). In the Innocenti case, a purely technical hearing was held this Wednesday.
“I want to denounce this sexual abuse, it is very important, we must protect our children from this type of predator. And there are also perhaps other victims,” explains this grandson of an Italian immigrant to justify this summons and his testimony.
One hour per week for two years
“In my case, I simply want to tell the truth. Demanding recognition of a fault by the courts is part of the reparation process,” adds the father, summarizing in one formula what he claims to have endured for two years. “When I finished my singing lesson, I put my underwear back on,” says Charles Innocenti, who describes the teenager he was. A high school student who is “fragile and physically self-conscious, uncomfortable in his skin,” with no sexual experience. A kid whose big brother recommends a renowned singing teacher to help his students progress.
In Pleyel, the young Charles discovered a soundproofed room of 20 m2, with carpet on the floor and a piano at the back of the room, which he visited for one hour a week from 1998 to 2000. According to his story, JL asked him to in boxer shorts and to lie down from the first lesson.
The reason ? Analyze your body, “its energy points”, during breathing exercises. The teacher, much older, would have touched his forehead, neck, but also the diaphragm, penis and perineum. “With his big, hot, sweaty hands,” the business manager described with disgust twenty-five years later.
“Alone with [son] secret »
At the time, “paratified”, the high school student said nothing. The touching, marked by the “perineum technique”, would have been repeated during each lesson during the quarter of an hour devoted to breathing. Then he had to sing naked. Charles, whose mother was very ill at the time, his father overinvested in the family restaurant and his brother who had gone to a hotel school in Switzerland, was going to “stay alone with [son] secret ».
“I loved my teacher, but I hated those first minutes. He listened to me, reassured me by saying: You are beautiful. He created a strong bond and became my mentor. Singing was my therapy,” relates Charles Innocenti. A therapy with toxic effects. “He shot my sexuality,” laments the owner of the Italian restaurant, evoking this chaotic first intimate relationship with a girl with whom he was “madly in love”.
His sexual blockages will destroy their romance. The father also admits to having fallen into serious addictions, hard drugs and detoxification treatment. He will have to wait until 2013, and his meeting with the future mother of his children, to free himself from his burden. At 31 years old.
Showdown in 2017
Another trigger came in 2017. The sexologist he consulted decided to arrange a meeting with his alleged attacker. “I accepted, even if I wasn’t being smart,” recalls Charles Innocenti, who went with the practitioner to where JL was giving singing lessons in Hauts-de-Seine.
“He had changed, but I recognized him right away. Him, no. I insisted, asking him if he remembered what he had done to me. My therapist put him on the ropes, then I said: I just want you to apologize, you destroyed me, I hate my body…” According to Charles Innocenti, the septuagenarian then replied: “I didn’t realize what I was doing. I am really sorry. » He never saw him once more.
“Afterwards, I thought it was better, but it still sticks. Today, my sexuality retains the stigma of these attacks,” confides the entrepreneur. The existence and persistence of trauma will condition the continuation of the civil action launched by his counsel.
“This damage is not consolidated, as attested by the psychiatrist who follows him, speaking of post-traumatic stress and symptoms that remain intense,” explains Rachel-Flore Pardo, who asked the court to order a medical expertise. The procedure will be long, Charles Innocenti knows it, just as he knows that he has nothing to gain by revealing this dark side. Otherwise this vital need to complete rebuilding oneself, anchored to the three pillars of one’s happiness.
Contacted, the singing teacher incriminated by Charles Innocenti did not respond.
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