Two-time Paralympic wheelchair tennis champion Nicholas Peifer was sentenced on Monday by a Sarreguemines (Moselle) court to a six-month suspended sentence for sexually abusing a minor under 15 years of age.
The judges followed the demands of the prosecutor’s office, which asked that the facts be reclassified as “sexual harassment.” Nicholas Pifer was initially prosecuted for “sexual proposition made to a minor under the age of 15 by electronic means”.
Messages exchanged between 2016 and 2018
“I am stunned by this decision. We are going to file an appeal,” Nicolas Pifer’s lawyer Me Martial Gagne told AFP. “The main warning was disqualified by the court, the fact that it does not stand up to scrutiny. And on the facts of harassment, I don’t see where harassment took place other than to consider that the fact of sending a message to someone, and not sending more than that when asked, constitutes harassment. For me, this is a serious distortion of the law,” he added.
During his trial in October, Me Gagne denied any criminal offense while admitting that his client exchanged messages with the victim, a civil plaintiff, between 2016 and 2018.
Originally from Sarreguemines, Nicolas Pifer won doubles gold at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, then at the Tokyo 2020 Games (which took place in August 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic), twice with Stefan Ude.
Source: Le Parisien
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