French director Christophe Ruggia has been sentenced to a two-year custodial sentence under house arrest with an electronic bracelet following a landmark trial on accusations by actress Adèle Haenel that he sexually assaulted her when she was a minor.
The Paris prosecutor’s office had requested five years in prison, with three years suspended, following a turbulent two-day court hearing in early December.
The sentence comes five years after Haenel went public in 2019 with sexual assault accusations against Ruggia in an interview with investigative website Mediapart.
Haenel accused Ruggia of sexually assaulting and molesting her over the course of three years, beginning with the shoot of The Devils in 2001, when she was 12 and he was 36, and continuing into the promotional and festival tour.
Ruggia, who denied the accusations, suggested to the court that Haenel’s accusations were “revenge” because he had not made a second film with her, a claim that was brushed aside by her lawyer.
Proceedings were briefly suspended on day two of the trial after Haenel yelled out “Shut your mouth!” and stormed out, when Ruggia was giving evidence in his defence suggesting he had tried to protect her as a teenager and advise her on how to avoid being bullied at school, suggesting she take a stage name.
