When Cédric G. stands up, it's almost like looking at Dominique Pelicot, only 20 years younger and 20 kilos lighter. The hairline, the gray hair, the rectangular face: The resemblance is uncanny. When Cédric G. begins to talk, recounting his career and revealing his personality, the invisible similarities between this 50-year-old former record dealer and the main defendant become even more disturbing.

Questioned by the Vaucluse criminal court on Friday, November 8, Cédric G. appeared to be the co-defendant who most closely resembled Dominique Pelicot's divided, manipulative and deviant personality. The two men also have in common having been raped in their youth – at the age of 12 for Cédric G., by an uncle who forced oral sex on him. Cédric G. recognized himself in the portrait of Dominique Pelicot painted by psychiatric experts at the start of the trial: "I wondered if they were talking about me or him. A huge slap in the face."

According to him, the starting point of his descent was a violent break-up with his lover at the age of 20, which earned him a suspended sentence, a redundancy and the rejection of his friends. "I lost everything at that moment, I felt a kind of anger, hatred, I needed an outlet," said Cédric G. "I could have sunk into alcohol, drugs. I turned to sex." He dialed premium-rate numbers from his parents' house, a derisive preamble to the disaster. "I think in terms of deviances, I've broken quite a few records," Cédric G. admitted, the other major pervert on trial.

On Monday, three former girlfriends took the stand, three victims of Cédric G.'s unwitting distribution of intimate photos and videos on the Internet – he was convicted of this in 2022 – and three staggering witnesses. Marion (first names have been changed), his girlfriend between 2013 and 2018, recounted how she had one day started receiving messages from strangers: Cédric G. had also broadcast, on Coco.fr, the same website Dominique Pelicot used to invite men to rape his wife Gisèle Pelicot, while they were in a relationship, "My name, my phone number, my social media, both sides of my identity card, my office address so that I could be harassed, which was the case for years."

Then came Stéphanie, who came in using a wheelchair because of her multiple sclerosis. She was diagnosed a few weeks before she met Cédric G. "One day," she told the court, "my mother started receiving phone calls and messages of condolence, even though I was very much alive." Cédric G., in conflict with his superiors and threatened with dismissal, had come up with a perfect story. "As everyone knew I had multiple sclerosis, he made his superiors believe I was dead. That enabled him to get a contractual severance."

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