Lawyers acting for Jean-Pierre Dartevelle, a former vice-president of the French Tennis Federation, are expected to lodge on appeal on Friday against his 10-year jail sentence for raping an ex-player almost 50 years his junior.
Dartevelle, 74, was found guilty on Thursday at the criminal court in Doubs, eastern France, of the sexual assaults between September 2016 and March 2018 when the victim was aged between 17 and 19.
"The civil party that I am representing and assisting has been recognised as a victim, and that is the most important thing for her," said the woman's lawyer, Benjamin Liautaud.
"As far as my client is concerned, moral duress has been recognised and punished."
Dartevelle, a dentist with a surgery in Montbéliard, eastern France, rose through the ranks to head the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté tennis league and become one of the most influential tennis administrators in the country. His rise was halted in February 2017 when he narrowly lost out to Bernard Giudicelli to head the French national tennis federation.
During the three-day hearing, Dartevelle told the court that the woman, now 25, had rewritten their story.
"She lies, she lies, she lies," he said. "I don't know who I am any more. A manipulator? A monster?"
The court heard Dartevelle describe a magnificent love affair. "I never saw a look of fear in her. I only saw tenderness. And if only she had shown any reluctance, I would have ended the relationship," he said.
'Hold'
The woman told the court Dartevelle's close ties to her parents in the tennis world gave him an unnatural hold over her.
"I developed an enormous fear of him," she said. "I couldn't find a way out or I didn't have the courage to do it. I was too ashamed."
The 18-month ordeal came, the court was told, during a period when the woman was trying to cope with a cluster of injuries and operations that forced her to reconsider her hopes of a career in tennis.
Despite surgery on her legs, the pain persisted and her health deteriorated. The court heard she went through phases of anorexia, bulimia and depression culminating in an attempt to take her own life.
The lawyer representing the French Tennis Federation, which helped the woman bring the case to court, accused Dartevelle of betraying his role as a leader.
"You abused the fragility of a top-level athlete, instead of defending her, you led her towards a precipice."
Recalling the start of attacks, the woman told the court: "We had been chatting on social networks, and I agreed to a meeting because Mr Dartevelle had promised to help me. And that's when I was raped for the first time."
(With newswires)
