Just for Laughs founder’s sexual assault trial starts Monday

Gilbert Rozon, founder of the Just for Laughs festival, leaves the Quebec Court of Appeals in Montreal, Thursday, May 16, 2019. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

Just for Laughs festival founder Gilbert Rozon will be back in court on Monday for accusations of sexual assault and rape.

Nine individual lawsuits were filed against him, and were combined into a single trial at Rozon’s request.

The amount claimed in all lawsuits totals $13.8 million.

The trial, scheduled to run until March 28, 2025, promises to be of historic importance.

Juripop's Executive Director, Sophie Gagnon, notes the “quite symbolic” nature of the case in Quebec. “These are the women who started the @Moiaussi wave in Quebec, and until now, these allegations have never been proven,” she recalls.

She adds that this is the first time the new law aimed at countering the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and improving civil protection and support for victims of violence, adopted on Nov. 28, will be applied in court. It also provides a “presumption of irrelevance of evidence based on myths and prejudices” in matters of sexual and domestic violence.

These myths include, for example, the idea that remaining in contact after an assault is a sign that it did not take place. “Many of [the] defense's arguments are based on myths,” says Gagnon.

Rozon's lawyers did not respond to The Canadian Press.

The trials were made possible because the statute of limitations, which stipulated that a complaint had to be filed within three years of the act, was abolished in 2015. The assaults are said to have taken place between the 1980s and the early 2000s.

Gagnon says Rozon “will challenge the constitutional validity of this amendment,” noting that this will be the first court ruling on such an issue.

She is also anxious to see how “similar fact evidence” will be used. Victims other than the nine plaintiffs will be called to testify in an attempt to show that there was “a modus operandi, a tendency, that Mr. Rozon frequently engaged in these behaviors.”

A long legal saga

On Nov. 27, 2017, the group Les Courageuses — made up of some 20 women claiming to have been assaulted by Rozon — filed a class-action suit against him. Though the claim was authorized on May 22, 2018, Rozon appealed on May 16, 2019.

In early 2020, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned the judgment authorizing the Courageuses' class action, ruling that it was not the appropriate mode of procedure for such a case.

The plaintiffs tried to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, but were denied.

Meanwhile, Rozon was acquitted at a criminal trial in 2020. Judge Mélanie Hébert ruled that there was a reasonable doubt as to the version of events put forward by plaintiff Annick Charrette.

While the burden of proof in criminal proceedings is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, in civil proceedings the objective is to demonstrate that one version of the facts is more likely than the other.

Gagnon recalls that, during the 2020 trial, “the judge was not kind to Mr. Rozon. She found his version rather implausible and, on the contrary, she found the version of the plaintiff, Ms. Charette, credible.”

Charrette is one of nine women suing Rozon as of Monday. In addition to the rape charge she brought in her criminal prosecution, she accuses the former comedy star of lying under oath to the court when testifying about these events. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Dec. 8, 2024.