The complainants describe touching of the genitals or chest.
A 75-year-old magnetist, working in Haute-Loire, was sentenced to four years in prison, three of which were suspended for a series of sexual assaults on clients, we learned on Wednesday from a judicial source and from his lawyer.
The Puy-en-Velay criminal court also declared the septuagenarian guilty of “hidden work” for his activity which he had carried out at his home in Blavozy since his retirement after a career as a salesman.
It was a complaint, filed in the summer of 2019 by a 19-year-old young woman, which triggered the opening of an investigation.
The investigation then made it possible to identify 13 other women who also filed a complaint for touching of the genitals and chest between October 2017 and December 2019, said the Puy-en-Velay public prosecutor's office.
A way “for energy to flow better”
At the hearing, the magnetizer, until then unknown to the courts, put the sexual abuse with which he was accused into perspective.
Faced with complainants describing in particular his propensity to “massage the chest (...) pinch the nipples”, he mentioned a way “so that the energy passes better”.
“Touching committed without violence or coercion, for which he was able to imagine that he had the agreement of the civil parties,” pleaded Me Aurélie Chambon.
He ended up admitting through his lawyer to having “hurt them”.
This healer with a well-established reputation as a magnetizer and "fire-cutter" is also sentenced to three years of compulsory treatment, a ban on carrying out this activity and to compensate the victims who have filed civil claims.
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At the beginning of October, in the neighboring department of Puy-de-Dôme, an Auvergne healer was sentenced to twelve years in prison by the criminal court for three rapes and nine sexual assaults on men who came to consult him from 2015 to 2021.