Koffi Olomidé
Koffi Olomidé, a 65-year-old Congolese star, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for kidnapping his former dancers.
On Monday, December 13, the Versailles Court in France condemned him for detaining his former female dancers without their consent.
The Congolese star had already departed France when the Versailles court handed down his 18-month sentence.
The musician disputed the allegations leveled against him by his former dancers. “The young women who accuse me dreamed of living in France and obtaining papers from associations,” he claimed.
“Women are extremely well protected,” Koffi Olomide remarked, “but we must also listen to our point of view.”
The Congolese singer, on the other hand, was cleared of sexual assault allegations against the same dancers who were previously members of his Quartier Latin band.
The alleged sexual assault on the dancers had allegedly been perpetrated between 2002 and 2006 in the singer’s villa in Asnières, a town in the Paris region.
The sexual assaults were acquitted “on the basis of the benefit of the doubt,” according to the president of the 7th Correctional Chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal, who referred to the complainants’ “changing, often contradicting accounts.”
The artist has a long legal history, including a conviction in France in 2019 for r*pe of a minor under the age of 15 and the sequestration of four of his dancers.
Instead of the seven-year prison sentence sought by the prosecution, the Nanterre court awarded him a two-year suspended sentence in the first instance.
The actress had filed an appeal against the sentencing.
Following a public assault on one of his dancers, he was expelled from Kenya in 2016. The singer expressed regret for “a brief period of distraction.”
In 2018, Zambia issued an arrest warrant for him for assaulting a photojournalist, which is one of the incidents that has left the leader of the Quartier Latin band with a, particularly bleak past.
