French filmmaker Luc Besson has been definitively cleared of all charges in the rape case involving the Belgian-Dutch female actor Sand Van Roy.
The ruling was issued on Wednesday by the Cour de Cassation, the French equivalent to the Supreme Court. The court document, obtained by Variety, says that “after examining the admissibility of the appeal and the files from the instruction, the Cour de Cassation has determined that there doesn’t exist, at present, any means to allow for the admission of the appeal.”
As part of the ruling, Van Roy has been ordered to pay Besson €2,500.
It marks the fourth and final judicial instruction in this case. The legal battle started with Van Roy’s police complaints filed in May and July 2018.
The case was dismissed by the Paris prosecutor after a nine-month investigation in February 2019, citing a lack of evidence. Van Roy then filed a civil complaint on the same charges in March 2019 which was once again dismissed after a three-year investigation in December 2021 and involved hearings with witnesses, including Besson’s former wife, the actor-director Maïwenn (“Jeanne du Barry”), with whom he has a daughter; and his former partner Anne Parillaud, an actor with whom he has two children.
It also included expert opinions of the civil party and an interrogation of Besson. Van Roy then appealed the ruling and lost again.
The ruling from the Cour de Cassation clears Besson of all charges in this case and prevents Van Roy from suing him on the same charges in France or elsewhere in Europe. She previously attempted to file a lawsuit in Belgium, in vain.
The actor, who had a small part in “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” alleged that she and Besson had an abusive affair that began on the shoot of “Valerian” and culminated in a rape on the night of May 17, 2018, at the Bristol Hotel in Paris.
“This decision confirms the dismissal in favor of Luc Besson and confirms all the decisions of the last five years which have found him not guilty,” said Besson’s attorney, Thierry Marambert, in a statement sent to Variety.
“It therefore puts a definitive end to this procedure initiated in 2018, during which Luc Besson was systematically cleared by all the magistrates who examined the case,” Marambert continued.
Following a four-year hiatus, Besson is making a directorial comeback with “DogMan,” a drama starring Caleb Landry Jones, which is expected to world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The company he founded, EuropaCorp, was taken over by New York-based Vine Alternative Investment, as part of a financial restructuring deal finalized in 2020.
Source – NBC News
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