The former mayor of Echenon (Côte d'Or), Dominique Lott, was sentenced Tuesday in Dijon to one year in prison with a two-year probationary sentence for having downloaded more than 10,000 child pornography images.
The criminal court, which delivered its judgment under advisement, followed the requisitions of the deputy prosecutor, Pauline Fritsch, at the hearing on April 26.
Resignation in December
The conviction of Dominique Lott, 63, was accompanied by an obligation of care and a ban on exercising an activity related to minors, as well as a deprivation of his civic, civil and family rights for a period of five years with registration in the automated judicial file of perpetrators of sexual or violent offenses (FIJAIS).
In particular, he must pay 500 euros in damages to the Children's Foundation, a civil party.
Dominique Lott, who resigned last December from his post as mayor of the town of around 800 inhabitants, was one of the 48 men arrested in mid-November across France during a vast operation to fight against child pornography.
The investigation then uncovered 10,200 child pornography files, downloaded between May 19, 2021 and July 25, 2022, leading to prosecution for acquisition, possession and dissemination of "
images of a minor presenting a pornographic nature
".
Read also“It’s a gear”: a former mayor of Côte-d’Or tried for possession and dissemination of child pornography images
According to the public prosecutor, "
more than 2000 download links
" had been found at the home of Dominique Lott, himself a grandfather, as well as traces of "
searches on keywords with ages of minors up to 8 years
”.
“
It is a sentence which corresponds to the seriousness of the offenses and to the personality of Mr. Lott
”, declared the lawyer of the ex-mayor, Me Élodie Mifsud, assuring that his client “
assumes (has) the facts
” .
“
This file did not require incarceration, probationary suspension is the best solution
”, she added, specifying that no appeal of the judgment will be lodged.
At the hearing, Me Mifsud had presented his client as a victim of the "
dangers of the internet
" by stressing that he had "
believed that it was not so serious
" to consult these images and that he "did
not know
» that he disseminated them by uploading them to peer-to-peer file sharing software.
Dominique Lott, who had then assured that he had been caught in a "
gear wheel
", was nevertheless not prohibited from appearing in places frequented by minors, which the defense had requested, in particular because "
there remained a grandfather
", according to Me Mifsud.
“
The mayor recognized the facts fairly quickly, justice passed, he was sentenced
“Reacted for his part Ludovic Rochette, president of the association of mayors of Côte-d’Or (AMF 21).
