A lawyer for Joel Le Scouarnec, a French surgeon who sexually abused and raped patients over decades, has died in an apparent suicide, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Maxime Tessier, 34, defended Le Scouarnec, 74, who confessed at his trial to sexually assaulting or raping 298 patients between 1989 and 2014, many of them children. A French court sentenced Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison in May.
"Everything points to suicide," Frederic Teillet, chief prosecutor in the western French city of Rennes, said of the lawyer's death, adding that an investigation had started. Tessier, a father of two young children, "had a very high regard for justice and was therefore very demanding towards himself," said Catherine Glon, his associate.
Tessier was one of two lawyers defending Le Scouarnec, one of the most infamous sex predators in French criminal history. Child rights advocates say the case had highlighted systemic failures that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes. A prosecutor in the case called the former doctor "the devil (...) dressed in a white coat." He abused many victims while they were under anesthesia or waking up after operations.