Decades after the alleged abuse, former model Carré Otis expands the fight for justice in France, building a path toward accountability for other women who may still have viable claims.
A new legal door opened earlier this month in the fight for survivor justice. But it’s not in the United States, where survivors and advocates continue to press for transparency and investigations into Jeffrey Epstein’s larger network and the modeling industry’s potential role in it. It’s in France.
Carré Otis, a U.S.-based former supermodel and board member of the Model Alliance, filed a criminal complaint in French court alleging rape of a minor and human trafficking by Gérald Marie, a former giant of the modeling industry who led Elite Model Management’s European operations from 1985 to 2010.
The complaint alleges that Otis was 17 when Elite sent her to Paris in 1986 and housed her in Gérald Marie’s apartment, where she “mistakenly believ[ed] that he wanted to support her modeling career.” While living there, Otis alleges that Marie raped her on multiple occasions and later arranged for her to be “provided to other wealthy men across Europe.” The complaint also says Otis was never paid for her modeling work.
Gérald Marie’s name has also surfaced in survivor-led advocacy calling for investigations into the modeling industry’s ties to the Epstein network. In recent letters, the Model Alliance has urged officials to examine whether modeling agency networks facilitated Epstein’s access to young models, and whether similar conduct occurred with other powerful abusers who relied on the same industry infrastructure.
Marie has denied Otis’ allegations, and because of France’s statute of limitations, cannot be criminally prosecuted for these particular allegations.
Still, Otis’ recent filing could prove consequential well beyond her own case.
One in-time survivor would change everything. It would turn this filing from a symbolic act into a live criminal proceeding.
Homayra Sellier, founder and president of Innocence in Danger
Time Can Often Protect Alleged Perpetrators From Legal Processes
Survivors, especially those abused when they were young, often need years or decades to process trauma, overcome fear and shame, and to feel safe enough in their lives and careers to come forward. But too often, legal frameworks use that very delay to close the courthouse door before investigations can begin. The result is that time often protects alleged perpetrators from facing formal legal proceedings, and fails those seeking to have their allegations investigated.
Otis’ new filing follows a May 7 decision by France’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court for civil and criminal appeals. The May 7 ruling did not erase France’s criminal statute of limitations, but clarified a civil pathway for some child sexual abuse survivors, recognizing that ongoing psychological harm may allow certain civil claims to proceed even when they were previously considered time-barred.
Following that decision, Otis filed in French criminal court as a civil party—a legal posture that allows her to participate formally in an investigation while creating a vehicle for other women, whether or not their cases are time-barred, to join the proceedings.
To Ms., Otis expressed hope that amidst the changing climate around sexual abuse, long-delayed justice may finally be beginning to take root.
We now know this was a global network that included channels from schools in Florida to top model agencies in Paris.
Carré Otis, women’s rights activist and former model
Otis frames her filing not as an isolated legal action, but as part of a much larger moment in survivor-led accountability, one shaped by decades of testimony, the Epstein case, and recent legal shifts and pushes for accountability in France and beyond.
“We are standing at a moment in time, witness to a web of systemic abuses that many of us have spoken out about for decades,” she says. “I first spoke out, 15 years ago, six years before #MeToo became a global phenomenon, when I was just seeing the tip of the iceberg.”
For Otis, that “tip of the iceberg” now includes not only her own allegations, but a broader international reckoning over sexual abuse, impunity and the law’s ability—or failure—to respond to unfolding events around sexual abuse internationally.
“Since then we’ve seen a known abuser and adjudicated sex offender become president of the United States—twice— the emergence of a global ‘rape academy,’ and the extraordinarily heroic story of Gisèle Pelicot not only advance the world’s understanding of the pervasiveness of rape culture but actually enshrine consent into French law,” Otis says.
Otis also voiced frustration with what she sees as the lack of accountability in the United States, despite years of survivor advocacy. “While hundreds of survivors have courageously and continuously stepped forward, enduring the retraumatization of telling their stories to the world while enduring routine misogynistic backlash, the men in these networks remain free. The United States government continues to cover up the perpetrators in the files who are also part of the French Epstein hub.”
She knew her own case was foreclosed by the calendar. She filed anyway, for the rest.
Homayra Sellier
Otis has spent decades advocating for justice for survivors and reforms in the modeling industry.
She first talked about some of her experiences in the industry in her 2011 memoir, Beauty Disrupted; pursued a civil case against Gérald Marie in U.S. courts, which is ongoing; joined the Model Alliance’s extensive efforts for reform in the industry; and has spoken with hundreds of other survivors to connect them to resources.
Now, she is using this legal strategy in France to press forward yet again—this time helping to open a new path for others who want to come forward and seek justice.
Otis described the significance of France in the larger context of the Epstein network:
“It has become clear that Paris was Epstein’s European hub, along with many other perpetrators, including my own. We now know this was a global network that included channels from schools in Florida to top model agencies in Paris. We know that in the case of Epstein and many powerful abusers, modeling agencies were sending models directly into the arms of known rapists and traffickers. This isn’t a coincidence—it’s infrastructure. A system.”
Otis’ lawyer, Mathias Darmon, an attorney with Innocence in Danger, an international NGO supporting the filing that works to protect children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, told the Associated Press, “The goal is to give other victims the opportunity to find the courage to join our complaint. … We are opening the door for all those affected by this internationally significant case to come forward and have their voices heard.”
Homayra Sellier, founder and president of Innocence in Danger, described this approach on Substack:
“Under French criminal procedure, a complaint of this kind—even when the woman who files it knows in advance that her own [criminal] case is time-barred—creates a legal vehicle that other survivors can join … including, in particular, survivors who were minors at the time and who, under French law, can come forward until they are 48.”
The key, Sellier explained, is whether another survivor whose claim is still within the statute of limitations comes forward: “One in-time survivor would change everything. It would turn this filing from a symbolic act into a live criminal proceeding.”
That is why Otis’ decision matters beyond her own case. As Sellier wrote: “This is what Carré Otis did on Friday. She knew her own case was foreclosed by the calendar. She filed anyway, for the rest.”
This legal effort is part of a multipronged approach survivors are leading in the absence of meaningful government action to date: filing complaints, supporting one another, pressing for investigations in the U.S. and internationally, and insisting that institutions follow the evidence.
Carré Otis Has Opened a Door
If other survivors come forward through the process she has initiated, the pressure could build not only in France, but internationally, and on U.S. investigators as well.
The question now is who will be heard, what their testimony may reveal, and whether institutions in the United States and abroad will finally follow the evidence wherever it leads.
