France has charged the founder of an adult website used to commit sexual offences, including by Dominique Pelicot who recruited dozens of strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife, prosecutors said.
Italian national Isaac Steidl, the founder and manager of the Coco.fr website, was charged with a number of offences, including the administration of an online platform to facilitate an illegal transaction by an organised gang.
The website was used by Pelicot to recruit strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife, Gisèle Pelicot, over a decade. Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in jail last month after a trial that turned his former wife into a feminist icon.
The Coco website was shut down by the French authorities in June 2024 when an investigation was opened.
The website hit the headlines after it was revealed that Pelicot, 72, had used a Coco chatroom called A son insu (without their knowledge) to recruit more than 80 men to rape and sexually abuse his then wife, who he had rendered unconscious with a cocktail of prescription drugs.
Also convicted in the trial in Avignon that ended in his 20-year jail term were 50 other men who were identified from the tens of thousands of videos and photographs Pelicot made of the abuse of his wife. They were also convicted and sentenced to between three and 15 years. Seventeen men have appealed against their convictions.
Police say they have frozen €5m in bank accounts linked to the site in Hungary, Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands.