The French visual artist Claude Lévêque was indicted on 31 March on charges including rape and sexual assault of minors and placed under judicial supervision, the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office announced on Friday.
The prosecutor’s office told AFP that two victims brought the charges but there is a chance that others will come forward during the judicial investigation.
The artist (70) is under investigation for “rape of a minor aged 15”, “rape of a minor by a person in authority” and “sexual assault of a minor aged 15 by a person in authority”, the same source detailed.
The investigation was opened in spring 2019 with authorities of Seine-Saint-Denis. They followed a complaint from the sculptor Laurent Foulon who recounted being raped by the artist from the age of 10 until he was 17, in the mid-1980s.
The allegations were submitted to the Bobigny public prosecutor by a letter in February 2019.
Claude Lévêque installation at Le Louvre, 2014. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The facts concerning the artist are time-barred, says the Bobigny public prosecutor. But two new victims, brothers, have been identified, Le Monde newspaper reveals. They are from Nièvre and have known Claude Lévêque since childhood. The artist was the best man at their parents’ wedding.
During their interviews, one of them mentioned having had sexual relations between the ages of 13 and 16, between 1997 and 2000. He says he was “masturbated” on several occasions by Claude Lévêque.
