2023-05-03 11:17:21
He had refused to resign before his trial. Dominique Lott, the former mayor of Échenon, in the Côte d’Or, was sentenced on Tuesday to one year in prison with a two-year probationary sentence for having downloaded more than 10,000 child pornography images. The conviction of Dominique Lott, 63, was accompanied by an obligation of care and a ban on exercising an activity related to minors, as well as a deprivation of his civic, civil and family rights for a period of five years. He must also pay 500 euros in damages to the Children’s Foundation, civil party. The sexagenarian is now registered in the automated judicial file of perpetrators of sexual or violent offenses.
Dominique Lott, who resigned last December from his post as mayor of the town of around 800 inhabitants, was one of the 48 men arrested in mid-November across France during a vast operation to fight against child pornography. Men linked to Child Welfare were also arrested.
Minors up to the age of 8
The investigation then uncovered 10,200 child pornography files, downloaded between May 19, 2021 and July 25, 2022, leading to prosecution for acquisition, possession and dissemination of “images of a minor presenting a pornographic character”.
According to the public prosecutor, “more than 2,000 download links” had been found at the home of Dominique Lott, himself a grandfather, as well as traces of “searches on keywords with ages of minors up to at 8 years old”.
“It is a sentence that corresponds to the seriousness of the offenses and to the personality of Mr. Lott”, declared the lawyer for the former mayor, Me Élodie Mifsud, assuring that his client “assumed (had) the facts” . According to her, “this file did not require incarceration, the probationary sentence is the best solution”. No appeal of the judgment will be lodged.
“Not so serious” to consult these images
At the hearing, Me Mifsud had presented his client as a victim of the “dangers of the Internet” by stressing that he had “believed that it was not so serious” to consult these images and that he “did not know » that he disseminated them by uploading them to peer-to-peer file sharing software.
Dominique Lott, who said he was caught in a “gear”, has nevertheless not received a ban on going to places frequented by minors. What the defense had asked for in particular that “there was still a grandfather”, according to Me Mifsud.
“The mayor recognized the facts fairly quickly, justice passed, he was sentenced”, reacted for his part Ludovic Rochette, president of the association of mayors of Côte-d’Or (AMF 21). The Dijon Criminal Court, which rendered its judgment under advisement, followed the requisitions of the deputy prosecutor, Pauline Fritsch, at the hearing on April 26.
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