“What I was looking for was an aesthetic, images of naked young girls. Not sexual situations ”, tried to explain Jean-André Cuot, low voice and haughty posture. Former anesthesiologist at the Jonzac hospital (Charente-Maritime), this 65-year-old man, dark suit and gray hair, was prosecuted this Thursday before the criminal court of Saintes for possession of child pornography images. A case that strikes another, that of Dr Joël Le Scouarnec, surgeon suspected of 349 rapes of former minor patients.
Without being "neither close, nor friends", the two men worked together in the hospital of Jonzac and rubbed shoulders in the operating room where Jean-André Cuot officiated since 2011 after a career spent in Monaco, Menton and Saintes. It is also in the context of the investigation against his colleague in 2017 that Jean-André Cuot himself recognized a first conviction - 4 months suspended sentence - in 2008 for possession of child pornography images.
This "denunciation" had led investigators to identify 14,873 visits to websites between October 2015 and October 2018. "Bulimia", said the prosecution, stressing "the trivialization" of the facts operated by Jean-André Cuot accused yesterday of " veil your face ”on these actions The anesthesiologist says that he was looking for “young girls between 15 and 30 years old” and denies any other voluntary approach targeting even younger girls.
"Yes, I was fully aware of the age of these young girls"
"A kind of escape," he said to investigators started during a bad patch marked by "financial troubles" and "alcohol problems". The keywords he typed on his computer keyboard, however, leave little room for doubt, noted the court: "Lolita, Teen ... Research that inevitably lead to child pornography sites".
Jean-André Cuot refutes this interpretation: “It's not what I was looking for! He himself compared his compulsive requests to "a form of addiction" on Thursday. “My first conviction, I thought it was a passing. In my life, by my job, I was used to mastering everything ... Yes, I was fully aware of the age of these young girls. This is what bothered me the most, "will answer this father and grandfather to a question from the prosecution before judging his requests" ignoble "and wondering about ... the absence of censorship on the Internet" as in China or in Japan ".
His lawyer, Me Jean Moulineau, did not fail to denounce “the amalgam between the Le Scouarnec case and my client who was unlucky enough to work in the same hospital as him. But there is a world between these two cases! The investigation showed that there was no link between them. My client has freed himself by denouncing himself! "
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PODCAST. Is surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec the worst French pedophile in history?
The court sentenced Jean-André Cuot to 12 months' imprisonment with a 3-year probationary suspension, an obligation of care and the ban on carrying out an activity in connection with minors for 5 years, a penalty slightly heavier than that required by the prosecution. Suspended since last March and the revelation of these facts, Jean-André Cuot has since been dismissed for misconduct by the hospital in Jonzac, a decision he intends to challenge in court.
