Luc Besson Cleared of Rape Allegations

Luc Besson — the French filmmaker behind The Professional, The Fifth Element, and La Femme Nikita — has been cleared of all charges in the alleged rape of actress Sand Van Roy.

According to legal documents acquired by Rolling Stone, the ruling came Wednesday via the French high court the Cour de Cassation, who declared 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.” Van Roy has also been ordered to pay Besson €2,500.

Van Roy — who appeared in Besson’s film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets — claimed she had had an abusive affair with the director during which he raped her in May 2018. She went to the police soon after. The case was dismissed in early 2019 due to a reported lack of evidence, after which Van Roy filed a civil complaint. When that was dismissed in 2021 after an investigation — including a hearing with witnesses — Van Roy appealed once more. After Wednesday’s ruling, the actress is no longer able to sue Besson on the same charges anywhere in Europe.

Van Roy did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment, but wrote on Twitter: “The Cour de Cassation has decided not to hear my appeal, which means once again the French judiciary refuses to examine the evidence in this case. I will pursue these cases and will file a request with the European Court of Human Rights.”

“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,” Besson’s lawyer Thierry Marembert wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone. “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. As a lawyer, I welcome this exemplary procedure, which has allowed the manifestation of the truth which is that Luc Besson is innocent.”

Although Van Roy was the only woman to take legal action against Besson for alleged sexual misconduct, he has been accused of such behavior by several other women. An unnamed former assistant claims Besson blackmailed her into a sexual relationship; two students from Besson’s Cite du Cinema film studio claimed he sexually harassed them; a former employee of EuropaCorp said he engaged in inappropriate behavior; a casting director claimed Besson assaulted her; and Karine Isambert, a theater producer said he manhandled her in 1995.

In 2019, around one year after five additional women came forward with misconduct allegations, he denied Van Roy’s allegations. “This case is a lie from A to Z,” he said. “I did not rape that woman, I have never raped a woman in my life.”