France court hands TV host suspended sentence over nude casting

A French appeals court on Monday handed a television presenter a suspended 18-month sentence over sexually harassing a young male actor during auditions a decade ago.

The court found Jean-Marc Morandini, a 59-year-old presenter on the right-wing CNews television broadcaster, guilty of harassing the 19-year-old as he sought actors for a web series in 2015.

Investigators had found that Morandini encouraged aspiring male actors aged 19 to 26 to record explicit scenes to try out for a web series he was producing on a football team's changing room antics.

Posing as a female casting director he had made up, Morandini would send them emails encouraging them to send in videos of them posing naked or masturbating, investigators said.

In one such email, the fake casting director asked one of these men -- named only as Gabriel, then aged 19 -- if he would be prepared to perform oral sex on Morandini, investigators said.

The Paris Appeals Court also ordered Morandini, who did not attend the ruling, to pay a 10,000-euro ($10,500) fine, as well as damages to Gabriel.

It also ruled that his production company should pay a second 10,000-euro fine for failing to declare the work of Gabriel and three other actors.

Morandini's lawyers said their client had always behaved in a "respectful and professional manner" and would be appealing Monday's ruling in France's highest criminal court.

A lower court in 2023 had handed Morandini a lesser punishment of a six-month suspended sentence in the same case.

In a separate case over alleged coercion of minors, another lower court sentenced the presenter to a suspended one-year jail term in 2022.

Investigators found he had sent two 15-year-olds explicit texts in 2013 and 2015-2016, and had asked a 16-year-old to undress and masturbate in 2009 as part of an audition at his home for a film that was never made.