Montreal — Quebec actor Edgar Fruitier will spend six months behind bars for two counts of assault against a teenager, taking place over 46 years ago. Quebec Court Judge Marc Bisson sentenced the 91-year-old performer during a hearing at the Longueuil courthouse Monday. The Crown called for six to nine months in jail, while the defence asked for a suspended sentence with probation, citing Fruitier's age. The victim, Jean-René Tétreault, now 62-years-old, had requested and obtained the lifting of the publication ban on his identity in order to encourage other victims of sexual assault to testify against their attackers. He was assaulted three times between 1974 and 1976. The first occurred in the summer of 1974 when the teenager got a job in an Eastern Townships theatre. He was 15-years-old and Fruitier was 44. Tétreault filed a complaint in 2018, with Fruitier being found guilty of two counts of assault in July 2020. -- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 30, 2021
