Former journalist Michel Venne sentenced to six months in prison for sexual assault

Former journalist Michel Venne (photographed in 2008 in Quebec City) was sentenced to six months in prison for sexual assault. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

MONTREAL — Former journalist Michel Venne was sentenced Tuesday at the Quebec City courthouse to six months in prison for sexually assaulting the documentary filmmaker Léa Clermont-Dion, but he will not remain behind bars for long.

His lawyers were expected to ask for his provisional release right away, since the Court of Appeal agreed last September to hear his challenge to the guilty verdict handed down to him last June.

Venne, a 61-year-old former director and founding member of the Institut du nouveau monde, was convicted of sexual assault and sexual exploitation of Clermont-Dion when she was only 17 years old and an intern at the Institute. He engaged in unwanted touching of the then-teenager in August 2008.

He faced a sentence of 45 days to 10 years in prison, but the six-month sentence was a joint suggestion by the Crown and the defence, which was endorsed by Court of Quebec Judge Stéphane Poulin. Venne will also be put on the sex offender registry for 20 years.

He was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

A date for his appeal hearing has not yet been set and could take several months. His lawyers claim that there were errors of law in the decision rendered by Justice Poulin.

Clermont-Dion asked that the order prohibiting the disclosure of her identity be lifted. She made a statement after the guilty verdict was handed down, saying she wanted to flip the script and shine shame on her attacker.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 9, 2021.