Sexual exploitation of a student: a coach guilty of a reduced charge

A basketball coach who sexually abused a student at his high school ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, escaping a sexual assault conviction.

• Also read: Student sexually exploited: fallen basketball coach will plead guilty

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“The actions occurred several times a week at the beginning, the frequency gradually decreased,” explained Mr. Jérôme Laflamme of the Crown, this Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse.

Just before, Charles-Xavier Boislard, 45, pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a teenage girl who was studying at Saint-Laurent high school at the time, around 2012.

In exchange, the Crown dropped the charges of sexual contact, as well as sexual assault.

Disadvantaged victim

Coming from a disadvantaged background, the teenager had fallen under the yoke of Boislard, who helped her, for example, to get to medical appointments.

“I had no one, I depended on him at the time… He did all that, so I felt obliged,” the victim testified during the preliminary investigation.

The abuse mainly occurred at Boislard, who then lived with his father.

“Sometimes I missed school,” explained the complainant, whose identity is protected by the court.

According to the facts admitted by the accused, the victim was then 16 years old. The problem is that the latter claims that she had 15.

“The first time, I was 15 years old, it was the year I was in secondary 3,” she said at the preliminary investigation.

The issue of age was important, since it could have an impact on the charges against Boislard. Thanks to his lawyer Me Eddy Ménard, the latter finally got what he wanted, because even if the recognized facts do not explicitly indicate the age of the victim, they cover the time when the victim was 16 years old.

Another coach too

And once Boislard’s crimes stopped, the teenager would then have fallen under the yoke of Daniel Lacasse, another coach from the same school. The latter, whose trial began this fall, denied everything.

The arrest of the two coaches in 2022, in addition to a third, Robert Luu, aged 34, created a shock wave at the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Service Center.

An investigation by the Ministry of Education then lifted the veil on a harmful climate among the basketball players at this school, with inappropriate behavior that no one reported.

Boislard will return to court later, for pleadings on the sentence to be imposed on him.