This judge from Dijon (Côte-d’Or) had sexually made his minor daughter available on a libertine dating site. He was tried before the Besançon court on Friday February 18, despite his absence. The prosecutor has asked for two years in prison, one of which is suspended, and his defense wants his release. The court’s decision will be handed down on March 11.
The defendant did not appear on Friday February 18 at the Besançon court. I’psychiatric examination concluded that his condition was not compatible with a court appearance. But he decided to try him despite his absence, as requested by the public prosecutor of Besançon, Etienne Manteaux.
Between October 2019 and May 2020, the then magistrate of Dijon (Côte-d’Or) had offered Internet users of the libertine site Wyylde to have sex with his then 12-year-old daughter. Under a pseudonym, he imagined sexual scenarios featuring her whom he nicknamed “Louane” or “the spy”. Warned by another user of the site, the investigators began to exchange with the former judge under a pseudonym.
Very quickly, he suggests to his interlocutors, whose real identity is unknown, to deflower his daughter and to submit her sexually. To another, he gives “carte blanche” to act on it. Finally, he sometimes sends photos of the teenager, where she sometimes appears in a swimsuit. It will be found in one of its servers images of his daughter which, if they do not constitute child pornography files, are sufficiently suggestive.
Finally, the exchanges between the father and his contacts will remain only virtual. He does not respond to the investigators when they ask if he is up for more concrete meetings. When questioned, her daughter said that she had never been sexually assaulted (confirmed by the gynecological examination), nor had she ever seen or participated in her parents’ sexual relations, contrary to what her father claimed during the interview. their discussions on the internet. She was never made aware of her father’s proposals.
The couple’s sexuality was widely discussed during the hearing. His wife, with whom he sometimes participated in libertine relations at his request, was exonerated and declared to know nothing of her husband’s behavior. The various actors in the trial highlighted the split between the liberated sexuality of the two adults and the silence that reigned in the family. The subject of sexuality was never mentioned with the children: “At 13, the young girl did not know that it was possible to have sex outside marriage”, said the girl’s ad-hoc administrator (the person who represents a minor in proceedings when their legal guardians cannot).
In the other aspects of his life, the ex-judge, son and brother of a police officer, apparently led at the time of the events, at 54, a rich professional career and a successful family life with the education of three brilliant children on the school plan. A journey that reinforces the trouble caused by the evocation of his behavior.
How did this man manage to deliver his daughter to strangers on the internet? He himself assured that his actions, which he said he knew would eventually be known, appeared to him as social suicide, responding to a malaise in his professional life.
According to the depositions he gave to the police or during his various psychiatric assessments, the former magistrate believes that his presence at the Bodein trial in 2007 contributed to the constitution of what he calls “his sexual delusions”. Pierre Bodein is a serial killer who killed and raped, in particular little girls, and who was sentenced to life in 2007. At that time, the defendant was working on the case, which was for him “a trauma”. The images of Bodein’s crimes are imprinted on him, according to his statements before the trial. There followed a malaise which he never spoke of and which would have turned into post-traumatic stress. The overwork he felt he had to carry when he was a judge in Dijon would have finished disturbing him mentally. As a result, his defense requested his release.
A hypothesis fought by the lawyers of the associations for the defense of the child (Innocence in danger, the Voice of the child, Acting against child prostitution) present at the hearing. According to their advice, the Bodein affair was not the trigger for the “darkness” of the ex-judge but rather “a revealer“ of it. “The Bodein affair cannot explain everything”, they summarized. The prosecutor insisted on “the psychosexual problem” of the father of the family. The latter would have “manipulated” the various psychiatric experts who came to examine him, according to Etienne Manteaux.
The prosecutor asked for a prison sentence of two years, one of which was suspended with an obligation of care. Also, he wants him to be sentenced to 10 years of prohibition of any activity with minors and registered in the file of perpetrators of sexual offences. The court’s decision will be handed down on March 11.
Since June 5, 2020, the 56-year-old man has been placed under judicial supervision. He was then indicted in Besançon for “instigation not followed by effects, to the commission of crimes of a sexual nature against minors”. He can no longer perform his professional duties since he was dismissed by the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) even if the decision could change since an appeal has been launched.
The case had been “out of place” in Franche-Comté to prevent the man and his wife from being judged by their colleagues in Dijon. His trial was originally scheduled to open before the Besançon court on Wednesday January 12. But’lawyer of the former Dijon magistrate had argued the poor health of his client to request the postponement.
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