The Public Prosecution Service (OM) announced last Tuesday that it would not prosecute Marco for a report made against him regarding the program The Voice. The investigation into another complaint is still ongoing. It concerns a 22-year-old woman who accuses Marco of ‘immoral touching’ when she was still a minor. They would have taken place between 2014 and 2019. The singer has filed a counter-declaration against the woman in this case. Marco’s lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops has announced that he will await the investigations into this matter.
“I know from personal experience how difficult it is to tell someone that something really bad has happened to you. You struggle with so many different emotions. Pain, sadness and disgust, but also guilt, because maybe I could have prevented it?” said the woman in her statement to RTL Boulevard. She also suffers from shame, she says. “As an adult that is almost impossible to do, as a child it is completely complicated. It is not for nothing that less than 10 percent report sexual abuse and it often takes years before someone dares to say something. That says everything about the impact and the trauma, nothing about the victim.”
In her response, the alleged victim also elaborates on Ruud’s statements. Because with the things he said, according to the woman, he not only suggests that Marco is innocent, but also that the victim may not be telling the truth. She believes that this doubt could make it more difficult for others to report the crime. “What if people say it’s my own fault, what if they think I’m acting up? The threshold to report is extremely high. And Ruud makes that threshold a bit higher with his statements on the radio.”
The woman understands Ruud’s point of view, that Marco’s life would have been unnecessarily turned upside down if it all turns out not to be true. “If it were not true, it would indeed be a great injustice. But I know it is true.” There is no claim for compensation, the woman emphasizes. “There is no question of revenge. Circumstances do not matter. Things have happened that are not allowed under our law and a judge must rule on that. It is very annoying for both parties and their loved ones that it has to take so long But it is also good that such careful research is being done.”
Where Marco is not yet being prosecuted, that is the case for Jeroen Rietbergen and Ali B. You can see everything about the facts they are suspected of in the video below.
