Abuse of trust, embezzlement… ten years ago, Jean-François Rossi, then head of the hematology department at Montpellier University Hospital, was under serious accusations of financial embezzlement. With his wife, Florence Coureau-Rossi, also targeted by charges, he has just been completely cleared by the Montpellier Court of Appeal, which in December pronounced a total release. “A page turns in pain” for the couple. With the feeling of a wasted career for Jean-François Rossi, who has been consulting for three years at the Sainte Catherine Institute, in Avignon, specializing in the management of cancer, and continues his research activity.
“We can go out with our heads held high, that changes everything” : for Florence Coureau-Rossi and her husband Jean-François Rossi, head of the hematology department of the Montpellier University Hospital from 1998 to 2011, the total release of accusations of financial embezzlement linked to the Hémato-LR and Ared associations, pronounced on December 10 by the Correctional Chamber of the Montpellier Court of Appeal, remains a victory with a bitter taste.
“On December 5, 2011, we were placed in police custody for 48 hours, remembers Florence Coureau-Rossi. We wanted to go all the way after a partial release”, a deliberation of the criminal court fell on December 4, 2017, five years after the start of the case. Five years later, the couple, defended by Me Jean-Robert Phung, turns a new page.
“It’s the cruel world of medicine”
“Everything has been swept away”, welcomes Florence Coureau-Rossi. But for ten years, she could not find activity in the communication.
Long “placed”, now detached from the Montpellier University Hospital, Jean-François Rossi provides part-time consultations at the Sainte-Catherine Cancer Institute, in Avignon, and continues his research activities: he is notably co-author of a study submitted at the end of December last to the prestigious scientific journal Nature which rehabilitates the action of a molecule considered promising for a time against Covid, tociluzimab, before being excluded from treatment.
But he is now 66, and will retire in 2023. His career has been “broken”, “we did not respect the presumption of innocence, it is the cruel world of medicine”: “I was fired from Inserm, fired from my teaching position at the faculty of medicine, I I had to resign from all my functions as a member of learned societies, I was suspended by the order of doctors… I should be a class 3 teacher, with the possibility of reaching the exceptional class. class 2. All my projects have been destroyed”, says the doctor.
“We were ahead of a lot of things, the home care network, the introduction of contemporary art in the hospital. We had a lot of ideas too early,” says Florence Coureau.
ten years of struggle
On December 5, 2011, Jean-François Rossi and Florence Coureau were placed in police custody after the auditor of the Hémato-LR network gave the alert in October 2010 on the financial management of the network, which was plagued by serious financial difficulties. The regional health agency will also produce, in February 2022, a vitriolic report on the subject, Hémato-LR only worked for two years, from 2009 to 2011, its aim was to bring care closer to patients’ homes. The charges relate to expenses considered unrelated to the association’s corporate purpose, including a trip to China, and the remuneration of Florence Coureau’s position. The ARS then alerted the public prosecutor who opened a preliminary investigation for “breach of trust”.
– On December 21, 2011, the director of the Montpellier University Hospital removed Professor Rossi from his duties as coordinator of the hematology department. The decision will be overturned by a judgment of the Administrative Court of Appeal of Marseille, in July 2016.
In 2016, Professor Rossi was arrested for three months, under a “ban on practicing medicine” pronounced by the order of doctors”.
In 2017, the couple obtained a partial release, but remained sentenced for the “surplus”, the trip to China and the hiring of practitioners (three weeks and two months). They are fined €10,000 (Pr Rossi) and €3,000 (Florence Coureau-Rossi) respectively.
December 2021: total release from the Montpellier Court of Appeal.
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