5 and 10 years required against Lionel and Carnot Guedj

2023-06-29 15:04:00

The two former Marseille dentists, father and son, are accused of having devitalized 3,900 healthy teeth in order to maximize their profits.

By HR with aFP 5 and 10 years required against the two Marseille dentists. © FRANCOIS DESTOC / MAXPPP / PHOTOPQR/LE TELEGRAMME/MAXPPP Published on 06/29/2023 at 3:04 p.m.

The prosecution requires ten and five years in prison respectively against Lionel and Carnot Guedj, two former dentists based in Marseille. The father and his son learned the verdict of their appeal this Thursday, June 29. They are accused of having mutilated “hundreds of sacrificed patients” and then of having transformed their office into a “money machine”.

In a short but scathing indictment, Advocate General Patrice Ollivier-Maurel painted Lionel Guedj’s portrait as that of a “barker” who had transformed his office in the working-class neighborhoods north of Marseille into “a cash machine running on full throttle”. And asked for a sentence of two years greater than that imposed at first instance by the Marseille criminal court. He matched this request with a fine of 50,000 euros and a permanent ban on practicing.

“The old fox in the service of the young wolf”

Against the second defendant, Jean-Claude Guedj, alias “Carnot” Guedj, the father, “the old fox in the service of the young wolf”, the Advocate General demanded five years in prison accompanied by a warrant of deposit and a permanent disqualification. The same sentence as that of the first instance. Co-author of the offenses, Carnot Guedj was “a little looking partner who presents himself as a small hand providing, on behalf of his son, after-sales service to people who suffer”, denounced the magistrate. Pending this appeal, Carnot Guedj was released after five months of imprisonment.

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For this second trial in this case, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal had relocated to the extraordinary trial room of the Marseille judicial court, in order to be able to accommodate all the civil parties. By devitalising, without any medical reason, 3,900 healthy teeth to place very profitable bridges, “Lionel”, as his patients called him, had become in five years the French dentist with the highest turnover.

To sanction “this greed”, Mr. Ollivier-Maurel asked the court to confirm the confiscations ordered at first instance – real estate, vehicles, boats, bank accounts, works of art -, for just over 2.2 million euros in total. As a bonus, he demanded the confiscation of the family home, a villa in the Aix countryside valued at 936,000 euros, as well as a tobacconist on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence, two properties belonging to his wife.

An insatiable thirst for money

“In less than six months after your indictment, on the pretext of a false separation, a false sale, you offload your assets to the benefit of your wife and your children. But the maneuver is so blatant that it makes you smile,” denounced the Advocate General.

This indictment, which Lionel Guedj listened to without blinking from the prison box, stigmatized the attitude of the former dentist, “barricaded in a caricatural defense” speaking in turn of conspiracy – “the argument when you don’t have no argument” – and the involuntary nature of the injuries inflicted. “To devitalize a tooth, it requires anesthesia, the elimination of the nerves, to cut the tooth. How to claim that such a technical act can be involuntary? quipped the magistrate.

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Incidentally, the Advocate General praised “the courage of the civil parties, who came to cry out their suffering at the bar” for days and days. In this case, “the human being has been relegated to a simple instrument at the service of your scam, the betrayed victims have been exploited like commodities”, he said, accusing Lionel Guedj of having “made his cabinet a business to make a profit and amass wealth”.

Referring to the consequences of these massive devitalizations made in haste, the representative of the prosecution stressed that “the mouth is the organ of our exchanges with the outside. Not daring to smile, not daring to speak, not daring to love, isn’t that the worst suffering, and all this to satisfy Lionel Guedj’s insatiable thirst for money. The defense will speak on Friday, during the last hearing of a trial that began on May 25. The court’s decision will then be reserved.