A witness who testified Wednesday at the civil trial of Gilbert Rozon said he was willing to assault the man after his former partner alleged more than four decades ago that she had been raped by the Just for Laughs founder.
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Alain Dugas was called as witness — in the trial where nine women are suing Rozon for $14 million for alleged sexual abuse — to support the testimony of Lyne Charlebois, the first plaintiff to testify in the case.
In December, Charlebois, a film and television director, alleged she was raped by Rozon while she was looking for work as a 24-year-old photographer in 1982.
She said she had an appointment to meet with Rozon at his office but that he told her he didn’t have time to see her portfolio that morning. She said she and Rozon made arrangements to have dinner later the same day and that Dugas attended the dinner. She also alleged that, after the dinner, Rozon asked her to meet him at his apartment that evening and that when she showed up she found Rozon shirtless and smoking a joint.
“I thought: ‘How can a man I just met, who just had dinner with my boyfriend, expect to have sex with me? He’s crazy. He’s sick. He’s going to kill me,’” Charlebois said back in December. “He penetrated me. It was fast, fortunately. I’ve never slept with a man for a job.”
On Wednesday, Dugas told the court that he and Charlebois were in a relationship between 1979 and 1981.
“I don’t recall the dinner with Rozon. Over the past three weeks I’ve tried to refresh my memory, but I don’t remember it,” Dugas said. “What I do recall is that Lyne and Rozon left.
“(Later the same evening), I was reading (at home) and, at a certain moment, I heard the door open. Lyne had arrived and she collapsed. She then turned and started to talk. She said she was raped by Mr. Rozon.”
Dugas said Charlebois was “devastated” and remained on the floor, leaning against wall in the apartment.
“I gave her the alternative, that I take her to the police or that she give me his address so that I could (assault him). She chose the third option, to do nothing,” Dugas said.
“I tried to convince her to do something, be it give me his address or to go to a police station,” Dugas said. “We had a discussion. She was really devastated. I was there for her. I was there for her. She was hurt and I was there for her.”
Dugas said he had little contact with Charlebois in the years that followed.
Charlebois is expected to return to the trial Wednesday afternoon to testify again, presumably to support what Dugas told Superior Court Justice Chantal Tremblay.