He calls for “exemplary sentences” to “echo this betrayal and this suffering”. This Thursday, in Marseille, on the penultimate day of Lionel Guedj’s appeal trial, Advocate General Patrice Ollivier-Maurel requested ten years in prison with continued detention against the former dentist from the northern districts accused of dental mutilation and Social Security fraud, the maximum penalty. Patrice Ollivier-Maurel also requested a fine of 50,000 euros, as well as a set of confiscations of property from the richest former practitioner in France, starting with his house and the tobacco shop he owns in the city center of the very chic Aix-en-Provence.
At first instance, Lionel Guedj was sentenced to eight years in prison with a committal warrant, but his house and business were not seized. During his indictment of an hour and a half, Patrice Ollivier-Maurel addressed the defendant directly in the box, accusing him of having “sacrificed hundreds of patients on the altar of greed”. More than 300 people are civil parties in this case, victims of dental complications after devitalization of healthy teeth and poses of unsuitable prostheses, but very profitable for the dentist.
“A system programmed to make money”
“The qualifiers that come to mind to summarize these days of hearing are greed, cynicism, selfishness, indifference, betrayal, pain, hatred, lies, but also the courage of those and those who came to testify at the bar, ”says Patrice Ollivier-Maurel. The latter accuses Lionel Guedj of having implemented “a method”, “a programmed system to make money”. Lionel Guedj listens to him, taken aback, rubbing his beard from time to time.
“There is no questioning, notes Patrice Ollivier-Maurel. To question yourself was to change pace, to concede that we had made mistakes, that we had devitalized a good number of teeth when you could no longer go back given the credits contracted. Between luxury cars, works of art and yacht, Lionel Guedj was at the head of a heritage of nearly 13 million euros, chaining patients, up to 70 a day, and posing 28 times more crowns than the average of his colleagues. “Even your regrets ring false, accuses the Advocate General. I have the impression that you regret having been arrested more than anything else. »
“There is only one who could have stopped you: it is your father”, continues Patrice Ollivier-Maurel. But came as soon as the dental practice on Avenue de Saint-Antoine, in the 15th arrondissement of Marseille, came to the aid of his son, who was seriously ill and who refused to stop all professional activity despite his state of health, Jean-Claude Guedj, an “experienced” dentist, according to Patrice Ollivier-Maurel, was not a simple accomplice as he says according to the Advocate General. “Mr. Guedj, you saw the teeth devitalized in a hurry. You have seen the ill-fitting prostheses, the abscesses, the aberrant treatment plans. And what did you do? Nothing. “And to accuse:” Father and son, it is a pair united in the same pact. The Advocate General requested a five-year prison sentence against Jean-Claude Guedj, and a ban on practicing, the same sentence as at first instance.