Claude Lévêque, star visual artist, indicted for rape of a minor – Liberation

2023-06-23 19:11:27

The Bobigny prosecutor’s office announces this Friday, June 23 that Claude Lévêque was indicted at the end of March, confirming information from “Le Monde”. He is the subject of two new complaints for facts which are, this time, not prescribed.

A judicial advance four years after the first charges. In the spring of 2019, the sculptor Laurent Faulon told in a long letter addressed to the prosecutor of Bobigny that the visual artist Claude Lévêque had raped him several times in the 80s, from his 13 years to his 17 years. Facts that Laurent Faulon knew were prescribed. But he also accused the star of contemporary art of having abused other children, in particular his two brothers in the 70s and 80s, both minors at the time of the events.

This Friday, June 23, The world reveals that Claude Lévêque was indicted on March 31 for acts of “rape of a minor aged fifteen”, “rape of a minor by a person having legal or de facto authority over the victim”, “sexual assault on a minor of fifteen years per person having authority”. According to the daily, he is now under judicial supervision and is prohibited from leaving French territory or entering into contact with ten of his alleged victims. Information confirmed by the Bobigny prosecution in the evening.

First two complaints not prescribed

Until now, all the alleged victims had either denied having had sexual relations with Claude Lévêque, or confirmed the statements of Laurent Faulon, but the alleged facts were also time-barred. Until two new victims, two brothers, end up being identified for non-prescribed facts. One of them describes having been sexually assaulted by the plastic surgeon between 1997 and 2000, when he was 13 to 16 years old. The second claims to have suffered several attacks, including rape, between 1989 and 1997. The first rapes took place when he was 10 or 11 years old. Both filed complaints. “Two victims are referred to in the qualifications retained, without excluding that there may be others who would declare themselves during the judicial investigation”, specifies the prosecution.

Subsequently, explains Le Monde, the Bobigny prosecution carried out searches on March 29 at the homes of Claude Lévêque in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) and in Nièvre. Placed in police custody the same day, he was therefore indicted at the end of it. Now 70 years old, Claude Lévêque continues to deny the facts.