PARIS—French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the owner of Paris-based adult company Jacquie et Michel was taken into custody Tuesday along with four others on charges of rape, pimping, human trafficking and more.
Attorney Nicolas Cellupica, who represents J&M parent company the Arès group, told AFP that owner Michel Piron and his wife were arrested "over alleged pimping, complicity in rape and complicity in sexual assault between 2009 and 2015." The Paris prosecutor's office also confirmed to AFP that three others had been arrested in connection with the case and face charges including gang rape, pimping and human trafficking. Those three were indentified to AFP by a source close to the case as porn actors.
The arrests come following an investigation launched in 2020 after feminist groups and several female adult performers came forward with claims of being forced into non-consensual sexual acts of an "out of the ordinary and painful" nature within the French adult production sector.
Cellupica told AFP that since the investigation began, "Michel Piron has always asked to be heard by the investigators and to answer their questions openly. He has always said that he's on the side of the victims if actresses have suffered acts of sexual violence that he was completely unaware of." He also asserted, "The Jacquie et Michel group has never produced or directed a film and is only a distributor of films made by independent producers.
"Finally, pornography has never been equated with prostitution: a porn actress is not a prostitute and a director or broadcaster is not a pimp," he added.
AVN reached out to Jacquie et Michel for comment, but had received no reply as of press time.
