The French wife allegedly drugged by her husband so she could be raped by more than 70 strangers while unconscious was left riddled with sexually transmitted infections — and was abused at least six times by someone known to have HIV, she testified Thursday.
Gisele Pelicot, 72, took the stand in the southern French city of Avignon to detail the horror of discovering that her husband, Dominique Pelicot, now 71, had allegedly lined up scores of men to rape her close to 100 times in their home for nearly a decade.
“My life was in danger but not one second did anyone stop,” Gisele told the court of the abuse inflicted on her between 2011 and 2020.
“I was tested for HIV as one man who came [to rape me] six times was seropositive,” she added.
“Luckily I didn’t catch it. But not once did Mr. Pelicot say to himself, ‘I’ve gone too far,’” she said, referring to her husband only by his surname. “He showed no pity, no pity at all.”
The grandmother also testified that she learned she was carrying at least four sexually transmitted infections by the time the depraved abuse came to light.
Gisele, who waived her right to anonymity and a closed-door trial, was so heavily sedated with crushed-up sleeping pills that she wasn’t even aware of the sick attacks at the time, prosecutors have said.
Pelicot and 50 other men — ages 26 to 74 — are on trial over the alleged rape-ring plot that involved him allegedly recruiting the rapists online, inviting them to his home and then filming them sexually assaulting his wife.
Police believe Gisele was unknowingly raped at least 92 times by at least 72 different men.
Her husband allegedly enforced a sick list of rules for the men to ensure she remained unconscious during the abuse — including banning them from wearing cologne or smoking, according to prosecutors.
“I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” Gisele said as she testified on the trial’s third day. “They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag.”
Speaking in a calm and clear voice, Gisele recalled the “unbearable” horror when the case finally came to light in September 2020 after a security guard caught Pelicot filming up women’s skirts in a shopping center.
A subsequent probe uncovered thousands of photos and videos of Gisele unconscious and being raped at the couple’s home, prosecutors alleged.
Gisele, who shares three children with Pelicot, said she immediately left her husband after cops showed her some of the images.
“For me, everything collapses,” she testified. “These are scenes of barbarity, of rape.”
After 50 years of marriage, she said, she left their home with two suitcases.
Since then, she said, “I no longer have an identity. … I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself.”
Gisele told the court that she hoped her testimony would spare other women from similar ordeals.
The trial is expected to last until December.
