A mother who was allegedly drugged by her own husband and then raped by several strangers faced them all in a packed courtroom today.
Gisèle Perico, a 72-year-old French woman, waived her right to anonymity on Monday at the opening of the trial against Dominique Perico, 71, and 51 other men.
All are charged with aggravated rape in the trial at the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon, which is expected to last four months. Twenty of them, including Perico, remain in custody, while the rest have been released on bail.
Asked to confirm her name and address at the start of the trial, Perico said: “My house is a prison, you know that.” Ms Perico, a mother of three, stood in the public gallery, supported by her adult children, listening to the evidence.
The family’s home in nearby Mazan became a crime scene for almost a decade, with crowds reportedly luring them to assault Ms Perico. Her husband is said to have contacted her between 2011 and 2020 using an online platform called coco.fr.
Detectives listed a total of 92 rape cases by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified. All of them will stand trial alongside Mr Perico, a former employee of the French energy company EDF.
In evidence at an earlier hearing, he said all the men who slept with his wife “knew she was using drugs” without her knowledge. “Everyone has free will” and “could leave the premises at any time,” Perico said.
Presiding Judge Roger Arata announced first thing on Monday morning that Perico’s wish for “full publicity” until the end of the trial would be granted.
“The hearing will be held in public,” said the judge presiding over the court of five specialist judges. Perico’s lawyer Antoine Camus said, “She could have chosen a closed trial, but that is what her attackers would have wanted,” and it would still be a “horrific ordeal,” Camus said, adding, “It was at the beginning. There will come a time when she will have to witness the rapes she endured for 10 years.”
The Pericos shared a large family home and, to the outside world, were highly respected pensioners whose families regularly visited. According to court evidence, neighbours described them as “nice people” who partyed around the pool and in their manicured gardens.
In fact, Perico was a serial rapist who emigrated with his family from near Paris in 1991 and is said to have later set up a sex ring. The “partners” were advertised on a website called “Without Your Knowledge”.
Participants discussed acts they would perform on unsuspecting partners, filmed the depraved acts and saved the videos on a USB stick labelled “abuse”.
In the Perico case, the data eventually made its way to the police, who confirmed it enabled them to identify 92 rape cases. Of the 83 men involved, 51, aged between 26 and 73, have been identified and arrested by police.
Perico is said to have immobilized his wife in the evening by mixing pills containing a powerful anti-anxiety drug into her food. He then invited strangers from online forums into the couple’s bedroom so they could rape her while she was unconscious. They were all instructed to wash their hands and not use aftershave so she would not feel like a stranger.
Investigators only learned of this horror in 2020 when Perico was arrested for taking photos up other customers’ skirts at a supermarket in Carpentras.
When police searched his camera phone and devices kept at his home, they found all the abuse images. The suspected rape victims in the case include civil servants, paramedics, soldiers, prison officers, nurses, journalists, local councillors and truck drivers.
The firefighter accused of raping Perico was seen on video wearing his uniform during the attack. Prosecutors said the firefighter’s computer contained 728 images of sexually abused children.
Some of the accomplices claimed they did not know the sex acts were non-consensual, while one denied raping her, saying “It’s his wife. He does whatever he wants to her.” December 21.