Actor files $1.6-million lawsuit against Rozon over alleged rape
Gilbert Rozon's legal problems are far from over.
Quebec actor Patricia Tulasne has filed a $1.6-million lawsuit against the producer and former head of the Just for Laughs comedy festival, alleging he “brutally raped” her in 1994.
A spokesperson for the group of women dubbed Les Courageuses, who tried unsuccessfully to file a class-action suit against Rozon, Tulasne seems to have followed up on comments from the Quebec Court of Appeal. While the court ruled a class action was “not the proper procedural vehicle” against the defendant, it made a point of explaining to the plaintiffs that “other legal means” were available to them if they wished to sue.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Superior Court contends Tulasne has suffered “alone and in silence” from the scars from the alleged assault, which is said to have followed a dinner in 1994 with actors from a play presented during Just for Laughs.
Tulasne says Rozon offered to drive her home and made no advances during the ride. But the lawsuit contends he insisted on accompanying her while she walked her dog after she had refused his request to enter her home.
Tulasne alleges that after a walk that seemed to last an eternity, during which she says she didn't want to risk offending someone so influential, Rozon entered her apartment by force, pinned her to a wall and began to unbutton her dress.
The suit says Tulasne was “in a state of shock,” fearful that Rozon would strike her and was “afraid of what he could do to her career.” Fearing the consequences of resisting, Tulasne says, she submitted to the attack, alleging that Rozon then dragged her to her bedroom and sexually assaulted her.
Tulasne says in the lawsuit that prior to October 2017, she “was never able to denounce” Rozon.
“It was unimaginable for her to do so, because he was a public personality who was very powerful in the entertainment industry and the political and social spheres. She saw him as an idealized and untouchable being,” the suit says.
But after the advent of the #Metoo movement and accusations against Rozon were made in Le Devoir and on 98.5 FM by nine women, Tulasne “found her courage and felt a moral and social obligation to denounce” Rozon.
In the lawsuit, Tulasne contends that, after the alleged assault, she fell into a deep depression, left Montreal to live in the country, and left her husband “without ever telling him she had been sexually assaulted.”
She says she's been single ever since, is incapable of trusting men, and lives alone with her dogs and cats.
Tulasne also says she “lost interest in her career and had a lot of difficulty being productive and looking for roles, having lost all confidence in herself.”
The lawsuit seeks $350,000 in moral damages and $250,000 in damages for her “loss of earning capacity stemming from her loss of productivity, of confidence in herself and her depression.”
Tulasne is also seeking $1 million in punitive damages, contending Rozon was “a sexual predator who had assaulted and sexually harassed numerous victims over a period of at least 40 years.”
Rozon referred questions to his lawyer.