The head of a modeling agency who used his status to lure and then sexually abuse 14 victims, most of them teenagers, chose to plead guilty at the start of his trial.
Jean-Sébastien Béland, 51, attacked more than a dozen‘years, from 2006 until his arrest in April 2019. He pleaded guilty to around thirty charges at the Montreal courthouse this morning. He thereby waived his trial, which began on Monday and was scheduled to last three months.
Of the 14 girls who fell into his clutches, nine were minors. Some were still in high school.
He presented himself to them as the head of an international modeling agency. He promised careers in Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. He took advantage of their naivety and the superiority he had over them to give them “challenges” and make “easy” money. He presented it as a game.
- Listen to the interview with Dave Blackburn, former Commissioner of the Parole Board QUB radio :
Near the school
These challenges were actually about giving him sexual favors, usually erotic massages or blowjobs. And they received significant sums of money, between $100 and $500, after complying.
He asked some of them to sign a form to confirm that they agreed to accept “the challenge.” Jean-Sébastien Béland even went so far as to arrange a meeting with the victims near the high school where they studied. He said he liked it when they wore their school uniforms.
He asked them to introduce him to friends and promised to pay them more if they managed to recruit them. When they failed to find other girls, he put pressure on them.
Some of the young victims viewed the man as an authority figure, their boss, others as a friend. He often called her in sweet words “my bunny”, “my love”, “my little angel”. He would manipulate them to get more sexual favors, lure them with money or promise them big contracts.
To a 16-year-old girl to whom he promised to pay for the production of a video, he wrote: “The more you please me, the more I will please you.” So ! »
Photo Pierre Paul Poulin
” Give and take “
He also asked a 15-year-old girl to strip naked under the pretense that he had already spent $6,000 to help her with her career and that it had to be a “give and take.” Then he asked for a massage on her thighs.
He also promised a 14-year-old girl that the massages he asked her for would “develop her as a person and as a woman.”
It was detectives from the Montreal police’s Sexual Exploitation and Anti-Pimping Unit who conducted the investigation. Given the seriousness of the matter, the Crown is considering having him declared a dangerous or long-term offender.
Béland was previously convicted of sexually exploiting a teenage girl and was also listed as a sex offender.
Can you share information about this story?
Write to us or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.