French prosecutor searches for victims after a man is accused of abusing 89 minors over 55 years

PARIS (AP) — A French prosecutor on Tuesday made public the identity of a 79-year-old man accused of raping and sexually assaulting 89 minors over more than five decades, launching an appeal for witnesses and possible victims in what authorities described as an unusually sprawling case spanning multiple countries.

Grenoble prosecutor Étienne Manteaux said the suspect, Jacques Leveugle, was placed under formal investigation in February 2024 for aggravated rape and sexual assault of minors and has been held in pretrial detention since April 2025.

The case hinges on writings investigators say were compiled by the suspect himself in a digital “memoir” found on a USB drive by a relative, and later turned over to authorities.

Prosecutors say the texts — described as 15 volumes — enabled investigators to identify 89 alleged victims, boys aged 13 to 17 at the time of the alleged assaults, from 1967 to 2022.

Manteaux said he chose to publicize the man’s name to encourage other victims to come forward. People under investigation in France are not normally named.

“This name must be known because the goal is to allow possible victims to come forward,” he said at a news conference.

Authorities set up a hotline and said anyone who believes they were a victim or has information should contact them.

The prosecutor said investigators had hoped to identify all alleged victims without a public appeal, but found that the documents often contained incomplete identities, complicating efforts to locate people decades later.

“We thought we would be able, internally, to identify all the victims,” Manteaux said, but “we realized we were up against a wall.”

France is still reeling from the Pelicot case, one of the country’s most shocking recent sexual violence trials, in which a husband was convicted of drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of men to rape her over years. In both cases, investigators say, a digital trail proved decisive — recordings and files in Pelicot’s case, and the USB drive in the Grenoble investigation.

On RTL radio shortly after the news conference, Manteaux emphasized the need to move quickly.

“There is urgency,” he said, citing the suspect’s age and the difficulty of tracing victims across 55 years.

Investigators said the alleged assaults occurred in France and abroad, including references to Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, the Philippines, India and Colombia, as well as New Caledonia, where authorities say the man worked as an educator.

Manteaux also said the suspect has acknowledged two separate killings within his family, prompting a parallel investigation.

Prosecutors say he admitted smothering his mother, who was in the terminal phase of cancer, and later his 92-year-old aunt in similar circumstances.

Regarding the aunt, Manteaux said the suspect told investigators that “because he had to return to the Cévennes and she begged him not to leave, he also chose to put her to death.”