A firefighter who became a “couple” with a 15-year-old girl he met during a presentation about his job at high school was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Friday. Even today, Maxime Cadorette’s victim suffers the serious consequences of his attacker’s crimes.
“I’m always afraid of being betrayed. It greatly affected my relationship with my parents and my self-confidence,” confided the teenager in a letter read to the court Friday at the Joliette courthouse.
The 32-year-old firefighter, who works as a fire prevention technician at the CISSS des Laurentides, pleaded guilty last summer to counts of sexual contact with a minor under 16 and obstruction of justice for having attempted to influence the victim in his statement to the police.
Maxime Cadorette was a firefighter in Saint-Donat, in Lanaudière, when he met the victim in 2019. The accused was visiting the teenager’s class — then in 1D or 2e secondary — to present his profession. After his presentation, they exchanged “friendly” text messages. At the end of the summer, he stopped writing to the victim when someone close to her reported the situation to the police.
Two years later, Maxime Cadorette reconnected with the victim, aged 15. They then developed what the teenager describes as a “normal couple” relationship. They were kissing and having sex at the hotel.
A few months later, when the teenager denounced him, Maxime Cadorette asked her to tell the police that nothing had happened between them before she was 16 — the legal age of consent.
Arrested, then released in December 2022, the firefighter mocked the court conditions and created a new Instagram account to communicate with the victim. He then met her in a high school parking lot to have sex. Their antics were filmed by students.
Maxime Cadorette showed repentance before having his wrists handcuffed. He offered his “sincere” apologies to the victim. “My actions were completely inappropriate and hurtful. I deeply hurt the victim and betrayed the trust of those close to me,” he said.
Judge Éric Côté endorsed the lawyers’ common suggestion of 20 months of detention. Crown prosecutor Me Stéphanie Gilbert explained that this proposed agreement had been made a long time ago “in a context where we were questioning the participation of the victim”. Without being lenient, this sentence is in fact far from exemplary.