He pretended to be a dermatologist in his brother's office in Besançon.
A man in his forties is suspected of having raped five patients and having sexually assaulted seven others, we learned this Friday from the public ministry of justice.
The man, who performed laser hair removal in his brother's dermatology practice, was initially indicted in November 2021 for rape and sexual assault, facts which he categorically contested.
The brother exonerated
The suspect's brother, meanwhile, a real dermatologist, was briefly taken into custody at the start of the investigation, before being quickly exonerated.
Since then, the file has grown, thanks in particular to a call for witnesses which has made it possible to identify ten new alleged victims, bringing their number to twelve in total.
According to the regional daily
L'Est Républicain
, the suspect assures that the patients were all consenting.
He presented himself to them as a dermatologist when he only held a degree in aesthetic medicine, a course that this former graphic designer and carpenter had not completed when he began to practice.
In criminal court
The 40-year-old, who is free under judicial supervision with a ban on practicing, must appear next year before the criminal court of Doubs, an experimental system made up of professional magistrates and responsible for judging crimes punishable between 15 and 20 years' imprisonment, according to the public prosecutor of Besançon, Etienne Manteaux.
These criminal courts are currently being tested in fifteen departments, of which the Doubs is not part, but they “will be generalized on January 1, 2023 (…) to all of France”, recalled Etienne Manteaux.
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