IN SPORTS, crime also does not pay.
It doesn’t matter whether you were once the toast of the world for your heroic feats.
You run afoul with the law you must pay for it. A rule as old as Mt. Apo.
This became obviously clear to Vincent Leroyer nearly four decades after he committed child rape and sexual abuse.
As reported by Associated Press, Leroyer, a former French swimming champion and ex-manager of one of France’s most successful hockey clubs, was found guilty recently and was sentenced to 12 years in jail in a court ruling in Bordeaux, France.
It was a light sentence if you ask me.
Was Leroyer’s age—he is 61 now—a factor in the not-so-stiff penalty for someone committing those ghastly twin crimes?
In summing up the case against Leroyer for the jury, prosecutor Martine Cazaban-Pouchet said: “It helped the families to have someone who said, ‘I’m available.’”
That was Leroyer’s favorite line in befriending the families of his victims.
To succeed in snaring his prey/s, Leroyer habitually offered himself to look after the children of families usually embroiled in domestic woes.
From 1986 to 1996, Leroyer did the despicable act of abusing five boys between the ages of six and 14 when he managed the Rouen Hockey Club.
His victims, now in their 30s and 40s, told the court how they have since struggled with addiction and a catalog of other difficulties.
AP reported: “The victims hugged each other after the guilty verdict and sentence was pronounced by the court.”
Leroyer’s feats as a backstroke national champion in the 1970s, besides coaching the Rouen Hockey Club to five titles, quickly flushed down the drain.
What I particularly like was the quickness with which the case was resolved: Just three days and the unmarried, childless Leroyer was meted his jail term.
The case exposed Leroyer’s lust for preying on kids belonging to families with marital difficulties and with absentee fathers either gallivanting or working late. He bought the kids burgers, brought them to holidays and tucked them in for the night.
There are still many Leroyers out there.