Marital harassment: 10 months suspended prison sentence for ex-host Laurent Boyer

The ax has fallen. The Paris Criminal Court on Monday sentenced former television and radio host Laurent Boyer to ten months in prison for the harassment of his ex-partner, including psychological violence, identity theft and the dissemination of an intimate image.

Suspended from the air by RTL radio because of this affair, the former flagship presenter of M6 (“Graines de star”, “Fréquenstar”), 68, received a prison sentence longer than the eight months suspended sentence required by the prosecution.

The president of the criminal court accompanied this conviction with a deprivation of eligibility rights for two years and a ban on contact with the victim for three years.

Dressed in a black frock coat over a white shirt, leather pants and shoes with red laces, the defendant, diagnosed as hyperactive, listened to the decision standing, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

This judgment ends a period of control which began in 2018. If the court acquitted the leader of the physical violence for lack of material evidence, it sanctioned a “constant climate of tensions, disputes and denigrating remarks”.

« Vengeance »

During the trial, Laurent Boyer said he was “devastated”, confessing his jealousy for the one he described as “the woman of my death”, quoting the singer Claude Nougaro.

The court also made several criminal reclassifications. The sixty-year-old was found guilty of identity theft for creating a fake Facebook profile in the complainant’s name with his own phone.

For “revenge”, he also distributed the photo of an intimate tattoo of his ex-partner, a fact reclassified as “transmission of the image of a person of a sexual nature”. The victim’s total incapacity for work (ITT) was assessed at less than eight days.

A psychiatric assessment of the victim was also ordered in order to assess the exact extent of her trauma.

“It’s the unfortunate epilogue to a story of a toxic and unique couple. Now we will see if we appeal this decision or not,” reacted his lawyer, Me Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, who had pleaded for acquittal.