French dentist Stéphane Schoener was sentenced on Friday by the Loiret Assizes in Orléans to 15 years in prison for three counts of rape and more than twenty sexual assaults during acupuncture sessions at his practice.
The jury also imposed a permanent ban on practicing as a dental surgeon and acupuncturist and confiscated the dental practice in Chalette-sur-Loing.
The court went beyond the 14-year prison sentence demanded by the Advocate General.
dr Schoener, 62, was found guilty of more than 20 years of benefiting from acupuncture sessions, specifically used as an alternative method to calm patients stressed by dental care, to commit sexual assault, going as far as rape through digital devices can penetration. Some of the sessions were filmed with a spy camera.
“For the rapes, you must say no!”, however, had one of the two defense attorneys, Me Balthazar Lévy, considering that the facts and the errors pointed out in the statements of the complainants did not make it possible to convict him Customer. .
“We understand that you can enter the trial for sexual assault, not rape,” stressed his colleague Chirine Heydari-Malayeri.
In the face of this “tsunami of plaintiffs,” all aged between 16 and 24 at the time of the crime, “do not listen to hatred, do not make a decision out of desperation,” she had demanded in court, asking in vain for “a fair trial of eight years”.
In the first days of the trial, which began on March 27, the dentist, who had been in custody since spring 2019, opened the door to a partial confession. However, in the face of his sacrifices, the sixty-year-old remained evasive of his responsibilities.
In the end, this “well-established respectable”, hunter and member of a local Masonic lodge, as described by the Advocate General, was therefore convicted of three rapes, including one on a minor over the age of 15. He was also found guilty of about twenty counts of sexual assault, compounded by the fact that the offenses were committed by a person who abused the authority conferred on him by his position.
dr Schoener, on the other hand, was acquitted of three sexual assaults as well as acts of torture and barbarism.