Source: Reuters
(NICE, FRANCE) — A French prosecutor Thursday called for prison terms for a former Miss Topless Belgium and two friends who staged a poolside sex trap that led to the break up of Princess Stephanie of Monaco’s marriage.
The Nice prosecutor recommended that stripper Muriel Houteman, who was seen frolicking with the princess’s then husband Daniel Ducruet at a private pool in pictures and videos taken in August 1996, get a one-year suspended jail sentence.
He called for the alleged mastermind, photographer Stephane de Lisiecki, and Houteman’s former companion Yves Hoogewys to be jailed for six months with another six months suspended and fined 150,000 francs ($22,100) each.
The trio were being tried for breaching the intimacy of Ducruet’s private life.
Lisiecki, who claims to have sold his pictures for 250,000 francs, has admitted organizing the trap at a Riviera villa.
Houteman said she had no idea she was being used as part of a scam. Looking tired, she came to court dressed in black with her hair pulled back tightly, a far cry from the bare-breasted beauty seen on the pictures.
Hoogewys did not appear in the one-day trial.
The court will return a verdict on April 27.
Ducruet’s lawyer Guillaume Carre told Lisiecki: “You’re not a photographer, you’re not even a paparazzo, you’re a pornographer with the look of a pimp.”
He said Lisiecki had spent 70,000 francs ($10,300) on plotting the trap for Ducruet, who was Stephanie’s bodyguard before they married. He requested that the trio pay his client 2.5 million francs in damages.
Ducruet was banished in disgrace by Monaco’s Prince Rainier after pictures and a video of his dalliance with Houteman at a Riviera villa hit the media. He divorced the princess in 1996.
Ducruet says the three framed him by spiking his champagne so he would yield to Houteman’s charms as they sat by her swimming pool
