A former surgeon at the Civil Hospitals of Colmar has been sentenced to three years in prison for sexual assaults and moral harassment against four women at his workplace, according to Agence France-Presse. The 70-year-old man will serve one year of his sentence under house arrest with electronic monitoring, while the remaining two years will be served on probation. The correctional court announced the decision late on Thursday, September 17. He has also been definitively banned from practicing as a doctor. The prosecutor had requested three years in prison, with half of it being definite and requiring detention. The alleged misconduct occurred between July 2017 and January 2022. It included performing a simulation of a sexual act on a nurse in the operating room, making degrading remarks toward another nurse, and touching the breast of a hospital service agent. A healthcare manager said she was sidelined and discredited from the moment she started working in the operating room. In total, 13 other people testified to "inappropriate sexual gestures" from the practitioner, according to the court’s president, even though he was not tried for these specific acts. The doctor continued to deny the allegations, as he had during the investigation, claiming he had "dedicated his life to public service" and had "never shouted or had inappropriate behavior." This specialist in orthopedic and trauma surgery spent most of his career at the Civil Hospitals of Colmar. He was provisionally suspended in 2022, but this decision was later overturned by an administrative court, allowing him to work in a private clinic in the Centre-Val de Loire region. He was also a municipal councilor in Colmar until 2020 and was suspended in January by the Medical Council. The convicted man has ten days from the judgment’s announcement to appeal the sentence. The case has drawn attention due to the nature of the alleged misconduct and the individual’s long-standing professional role in the healthcare sector. The court’s decision underscores the legal consequences for such behavior, even when it occurs in a professional setting.