Sexual violence: former CNC boss Dominique Boutonnat acquitted on appeal

The Versailles Court of Appeal on Friday acquitted the former president of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC) Dominique Boutonnat, tried for having sexually assaulted his godson in Greece in August 2020. Dominique Boutonnat, 56, was sentenced at first instance to one year in prison by the Nanterre judicial court.

At the beginning of May, the prosecution of the Versailles Court of Appeal requested three years in prison, including one against the former president of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC) Dominique Boutonnat, sentenced at first instance to the same sentence for having sexually assaulted his godson. The Advocate General had particularly highlighted the “posture of denial” by Dominique Boutonnat.

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Partial confessions

During the hearing as at first instance in 2024, Dominique Boutonnat, who before his conviction was one of the most influential figures in French cinema, denied the facts, even if he now says he better understands the “real suffering” of his godson. He resigned from the CNC, a structure responsible, among other things, for managing the prevention of sexual violence in the film industry, after his conviction.

His godson, 20 years old at the time of the facts, accused him, during a vacation in Greece in August 2020 in Dominique Boutonnat’s country house, of having tried to masturbate him in his bed after they had bathed naked in a swimming pool. The young man claims to have then masturbated in his room so that he would stop touching him.

The former president of the CNC once again admitted to having taken a naked photo of him leaving the swimming pool but while he was aiming at the landscape; and kisses in the latter’s room, but consented to and initiated by his godson, always according to his statements. Finally, the next day, both parties agreed on the fact that Dominique Boutonnat entered his godson’s bathroom to kiss him, this time according to the defendant in an attempt to remove the ambiguity about the facts of the previous night.

In a recording, made a few days later and described as ” nightmare “ for him by the lawyer of the civil party Caroline Toby, Dominique Boutonnat recognizes acts but “nothing sexual”which would be of his “mistake”as he expresses it several times. During the investigation, he assures that he admits nothing but that he then tries to relieve the young man of guilt by “excess of empathy”not knowing that the latter is recording it. But during the call, Dominique Boutonnat asks several times that his interlocutor not speak to anyone.