TV producer Luc Wiseman sentenced to two years for sexual touching

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The previous head of a manufacturing firm behind a few of Quebec’s hottest tv exhibits was sentenced Friday to a jail time period of two years much less a day for touching a younger lady in a sexual method.

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Throughout a listening to on the Montreal courthouse, Quebec Court docket Decide Pierre Labelle stated he accepted the joint sentence advice introduced to him in July when Luc Wiseman, 67, pleaded responsible to 1 rely of sexual interference.

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Wiseman admitted he sexually abused the preteen lady on three events throughout 2020 and 2021. The abuse grew to become worse every time and ended with Wiseman touching the lady throughout her physique, the decide famous.

A typical publication ban has been positioned on the sufferer’s id. The courtroom was knowledgeable the lady suffers from anxiousness and stress. She has seen a psychologist and has hassle concentrating, which has affected her efficiency at college.

Wiseman was taken into custody after his responsible plea. On Friday, 45 days have been subtracted from his jail time period, which is to be adopted by three years of probation.

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“There’s nothing on this choice that may erase what occurred to you,” Labelle stated when he addressed the sufferer as her mom adopted the listening to by a video convention. “I can solely hope that your struggling can be lowered with time and that the individuals round you give you the required consolation. I salute your braveness for having denounced the (abuse).”

Whereas accepting the sentence advice, the decide famous the Crown all the time has a heavy burden in proving past an affordable doubt {that a} crime was dedicated, and that responsible pleas are useful to victims as a result of they don’t need to relive what occurred after they testify.

“Nobody can declare that the sentence might need been extra extreme following a trial. It’s potential,” Labelle stated. “Right here, the accused totally acknowledges his guilt. The sentence underlines the reprehensible character of his actions and it’s not opposite to justice and it’s not unreasonable.

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“This additionally saves sources that are, for (Montreal’s) judicial district, in a vital state. What’s extra, the sufferer didn’t need to testify. All of this ought to be acknowledged within the train” of sentencing Wiseman.

One other mitigating issue is that, after he was arrested in 2021, Wiseman consulted a psychologist specialised in treating instances involving sexual deviance.

After his arrest, Wiseman stepped down as president of Avanti Groupe, the place he had change into a shareholder in 1990 after having labored for the Only for Laughs comedy competition between 1984 and 1990 and on selection exhibits with a few of Quebec’s largest stars.

In 2001, he purchased out his companions within the firm, then known as Avanti Cité Video, and was one of many province’s largest suppliers of prime time exhibits. He co-produced Tout le monde en parle, the favored Sunday evening speak present on Radio-Canada, for 14 years earlier than his arrest.

pcherry@postmedia.com