Overview
- Grenoble prosecutor Étienne Manteaux publicly identified 79-year-old Jacques Leveugle and launched a hotline with decades of photos to help locate untraced victims and witnesses.
- Leveugle has been under formal investigation since February 2024 and held in pretrial detention since April 2025 on charges of aggravated rape and sexual assault of 89 minors.
- Prosecutors say a relative discovered the USB drive containing the suspect’s writings, which investigators describe as 15 volumes detailing encounters with boys aged 13 to 17.
- The documents point to alleged assaults from 1967 to 2022 in France and abroad, including Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, the Philippines, India, Colombia and New Caledonia.
- A separate inquiry is probing the suspect’s admissions that he smothered his terminally ill mother and later his 92-year-old aunt, with prosecutors noting urgency given identification challenges and statutes limiting pre-1993 cases.