A second trial is looming for television host Jean-Marc Morandini: already sent back to correctional for “corruption of minors”, he will also be tried for “sexual harassment” as part of a casting in which he had participated for a web -series between 2015 and 2016.
In an order dated December 23, revealed Monday by BFMTV and of which AFP was aware, the investigating judge in charge of the investigations ordered his referral to the Paris Criminal Court for “sexual harassment” once morest a complainant.
She also fired his production company “Ne Zappez pas! Production”, of which he is the legal representative, for “covert work” in respect of five plaintiffs.
The magistrate, on the other hand, ordered dismissals for “sexual harassment” once morest four other complainants.
“There had been classification without follow-up to five complaints, there is a dismissal for four of the five”, underlined Me Céline Lasek, the lawyer of the host of Cnews and NRJ12. Regarding the fifth, “Mr. Morandini will demonstrate that he did not commit harassment in court,” she added.
In July 2016 in Les Inrockuptibles, two young actors accused Jean-Marc Morandini, now 56 years old, of having taken advantage of castings made for an erotic web-series called “Les Faucons” to push them to show off naked.
According to their testimonies, a person posing as casting director and calling himself “Catherine Leclerc” – in reality Mr. Morandini under a pseudonym – had urged them by email to send videos of themselves naked and scenes of masturbation .
In total, five actors had lodged a complaint for “sexual harassment”. They had also denounced facts of “hidden work”, the production company not having declared the actors to social organizations.
– “Serious pressures” –
Seized of this complaint, the Paris prosecutor’s office had closed its investigation in December 2016. But the plaintiffs had obtained in 2018 the resumption of the investigations by an examining magistrate.
At the end of the investigation, Mr. Morandini is accused of “serious pressure” to obtain oral sex and “repeated” sexual solicitation in the summer of 2015, then over several months, on a young man of 18- 19 years old who had responded to the casting offer. The latter had no training, no experience in the field or agent.
To do this, Mr. Morandini created a “totally fictional character”, Catherine Leclerc, a “maternal and reassuring figure inspiring confidence in the young man who encouraged him to always push his limits in the act of a sexual nature, under the pretext alleged to work his posture of actor “, underlines the judge.
In another case, the host was sent back in July 2020 to the criminal court for “corruption of a minor” on two plaintiffs.
In the first complaint, a young man claimed that Mr. Morandini had made him sexual proposals in SMS exchanges, between February and March 2013.
The second complainant, who has since withdrawn, had for his part told of having been contacted in July 2009 by Mr. Morandini’s production company via a casting site for a film remake project.
He explained to have been invited, alone, to the host’s home where the latter would have invited him to undress and to reproduce a masturbation scene, according to the newspaper Le Parisien.
At the end of November, the Paris Court of Appeal validated his referral to the criminal court in this first case, but without the aggravating circumstances of incitement by a means of telecommunication and incitement to the sexual proposition on a minor.
Her lawyer then announced her intention to appeal to the Supreme Court.
