Carré Otis Refiles Time-Barred Rape and Trafficking Allegations Against Ex-Elite Executive Gérald Marie, Who Denies Claims

Carré Otis, 58, has filed a complaint at a Paris court alleging she was raped and trafficked by Gérald Marie, the former European head of the Elite Model agency. The complaint, seen by the AP, charges rape of a minor and human trafficking. Otis was sent to Paris in 1986 by Elite when she was 17 and housed in Marie’s apartment, “mistakenly believing that he wanted to support her modeling career,” according to the complaint.

While living there, she alleges she was raped on multiple occasions by Marie, who then arranged for her to be provided to other wealthy men across Europe. She was never paid for her modeling work. Gérald Marie, a 76-year-old French national who supervised Elite operations from 1985 to 2010, has denied the allegations.

French law bars prosecution in Otis’s case because the statute of limitations has expired; victims who were minors at the time of alleged abuse may file until age 48. Mathias Darmon, Otis’s lawyer, said the new complaint is intended to let other women join the proceedings even if their own claims are time-barred.

“The goal is to give other victims the opportunity to find the courage to join our complaint,” Darmon said.

Otis became a supermodel in the late 1980s and early 1990s, appearing on the covers of Elle, Vogue and Vanity Fair and featuring in the Pirelli calendar. A 2021 complaint filed by Otis and other former models alleging rape and sexual assault by Marie in the 1980s was dismissed on statute-of-limitations grounds.