“Doctor Guedj was a nice person”. These words spoken this Friday at the bar by Sophie, former dental assistant to the dentist, make people jump on the benches of the victims of doctors Guedj. The “nice someone” lives on the fourth day of his appeal trial, accused of dental mutilation on hundreds of patients in the northern districts of Marseille. However, do not be mistaken. The doctor Guedj that Sophie evokes at the helm is not Lionel, the one everyone is talking about in this file, the one who founded this dental practice in the Saint-Antoine district in 2005, where it all started . It is a certain Carnot Guedj, also accused of having devitalized the healthy teeth of patients to fit them with very lucrative and medically unjustified prostheses, until their indictments in 2012. The same Carnot Guedj who found himself sent to the same prison as his son, in September 2022, in this extraordinary case.
Sophie knew Carnot Guedj long before all that. Moreover, like many, she does not call him Carnot, but by his middle name, Jean-Claude. The dental assistant was hired in 2008 in a firm in which Jean-Claude Guedj had been practicing for several years already, in Marignane, at the gates of Marseille. “In the morning, he brought us pain au chocolat,” she continues. When he took a five-minute break at ten o’clock, he was by our side. When we were tired, he understood. He is someone who, with us, was very pleasant. »
“Father and son are very close”
When he had finished his days in Marignane, Jean-Claude Guedj began a second day, alongside his son, in Saint-Antoine. The father had become an employee of the son to become his right arm, while Lionel Guedj was carrying out his professional activity and his two chemotherapies. The son recovered. The father stayed. “Father and son are very close, notes at the bar the director of investigation, Carole Bassompierre. They have admiration for each other. The father worked in the son’s office, but, according to the hearings, he was no longer there when Lionel Guedj had a technical or even relational problem with certain patients. He perhaps succeeded in calming people down. He passed on to his father when he was in trouble. And my feeling is that there was no alarm bell from Father Guedj. That’s for sure. The dentist is accused by the former cabinet secretaries of having even falsified x-rays while he and his son were the subject of a Social Security investigation, which he disputes.
In the motivation of its decision which led to the conviction at first instance of Jean-Claude Guedj, before the dentists appealed, the criminal court drives the point home. “It appears that on many occasions, Jean-Claude Guedj was present during the appointment during which Lionel Guedj considered the devitalization of teeth for the purpose of fitting prostheses. He was consulted on the work planned, but also, he could himself carry out devitalization of teeth within the framework of these treatment plans, which is without doubt as to his knowledge of the care undertaken. »
“It went too far, too fast”
On parole since last March pending his appeal trial, Jean-Claude Guedj made a request to the court, granted by the magistrates. Being able to kiss his son, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence, away from the courtroom at the start of the trial. Each time the hearing is suspended, he goes to see him, to talk to him, for a brief moment. But this unfailing support for his son, Jean-Claude Guedj departs from it, once at the helm. For this appeal trial, where the mea culpa and questioning of Lionel Guedj, rather offensive, are rare, Jean-Claude Guedj strives from the first days to distance himself from his son, in his words as in his attitude. With the implicit impression that you have to save your skin.
“In terms of treatment plans, personally, I did exceptionally, insists Jean-Claude Guedj. Not everyone came to see Jean-Claude Guedj. He didn’t come to see me. He didn’t care about me. “And to recall:” At the time, I was close to 60 years old. And between Marignane and Saint-Antoine, I worked 50 hours a week. At that age, at that rate, you last two or three months. Frankly, at that time, I was a little overbooked. I was even dropped. I was tired. The role I had in my son’s office was essentially to help him out. He had to do emergency treatment, I was there. Today, yes, I realize that it went too far, went too fast. But that’s today, in context. In his words, in the dock, Lionel Guedj bites his nails, staring at the ground. At first instance, Jean-Claude Guedj was sentenced to five years in prison, and faces, like his son, up to ten years.