About fifteen students had lodged a complaint all over France against him. A 30-year-old who sexually harassed young women, posing as a recruiter on the professional social network LinkedIn, was sentenced Friday in Paris to 18 months in prison, 9 of which were suspended. Married and father of two children, Armand Taïeb, was not present in court to hear the decision.
The court ordered that the firm part of the prison sentence be served under an electronic bracelet. He combined the sentence with an obligation of psychological follow-up. The 34-year-old man will also have to compensate the seven civil parties – around fifteen victims had been identified.
“He asked me to lift my blouse”
During the trial last month, several young women recounted their experiences on the stand. Students, and barely in their twenties, it was for most of them their first job interview. All had been contacted via LinkedIn in 2021, and the interview had taken place by videoconference – he kept his camera off.
“He asked me to lift my blouse,” said Cléo, to whom his interlocutor promised a legal internship in a business law firm. At one, Armand Taïeb had asked if she was ready “to play with the wrist”, at the other, he had explained that his trainees “helped him to relax”. “He asked me if I could work with an egg”, had detailed at the bar another plaintiff who will eventually understand – and end the interview – by receiving the photo of a vibrator.
Before the court, the false recruiter had denied any sexual harassment, regretting a problem of “interpretation”. The intercepted conversations and text messages, however unequivocal, were for him part of “freedom of expression. “It’s not a question of interpretation,” exasperated the president. “Intruding on the sphere of intimacy in the context of work is prohibited by law”. “You will have noticed a small societal evolution lately, it is 2023 and you are still talking to us about interpretation? Will have to impregnate! “, she had choked during the trial.