The founder of the website used by Dominique Pelicot to invite dozens of men to rape his wife after drugging her was indicted Thursday in France on myriad charges, including some linked to that case.
If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to 7.5 million euros, or about $7.7 million.
The site’s founder, Isaac Steidl, 44, was released from prison Thursday. The investigating judge’s office said he was placed under “judicial control”, had to pay bail of 100,000 euros and was barred from leaving France.
The website he created in 2003, called coco.fr, became famous in France during the trial of Mr Pelicot and 50 other men, who were all found guilty last month, mainly of raping his now ex-wife of Mr. Pelicot, Gisèle, while she was heavily sedated.
One of the charges against Mr. Steidl related to the Pelicot case is that he operated an online platform to enable an illicit transaction by an organized gang. Among the other charges against him are complicity in drug trafficking, complicity in the possession and distribution of child pornography, aggravated exploitation of prostitution and aggravated money laundering.
Mr. Steidl “firmly denies the accusations made against him and undertakes to cooperate fully to demonstrate his lack of responsibility for the alleged crimes,” his lawyer, Julien Zanatta, told Agence France-Presse.
During the trial, some of the men said the website had become a hotbed of predators who paid a monthly fee of 5 euros to communicate in private chat rooms that had names such as “without his knowledge”. The site was not moderated, several defendants testified. According to Le Monde, a French newspaper, no record of the messages was kept.
Many said during the trial that after connecting with Mr Pelicot on the site, they then switched to private chats, via text or Skype, to arrange a visit to the Pelicots’ home in southern France, where they joined him in the rape of his ex-wife while he was in a deeply drugged state.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement that the website was implicated in more than 23,000 cases in France alone from 2021 to 2024, involving 480 alleged victims. The cases included allegations of child sexual abuse, pimping, rape, drug trafficking, fraud and murder, police and prosecutors said in a statement.
The site was shut down in June after an 18-month investigation that spanned across Europe. Police froze bank accounts in Hungary, Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands and seized 5 million euros, the Paris prosecutor said at the time.
During the operation, Mr Steidl’s home in Bulgaria was searched at the request of French judges, the prosecutor’s office said.
Mr. Steidl grew up in the southern French province of Var. In April 2023, the French government granted his request to renounce his French citizenship. Last June, after the closure of his site, he was interviewed by an investigating judge in Bulgaria, in the presence of French law enforcement.