A teacher recently accused of committing sex crimes against six students at Stanislas College in Montreal allegedly contacted other minors while working at other schools. Alexandre Gagné would have told them to shoot pornographic films or look for models, according to testimonies obtained by La Presse.
In mid-March, this teacher was accused of having committed sexual crimes against six students at the private Montreal establishment.
In particular, he would have sexually exploited a teenager while he was in a position of authority or trust, in addition to forcing her to send him photos of her. The five other underage victims are said to have received sexually explicit material from the accused or were lured by him.
Over the past few weeks, La Presse has collected the testimonies of four other students who, with the exception of two, do not know each other and who had Alexandre Gagné as a teacher in two other establishments: the Liberté-Jeunesse school in Sainte- Marthe-sur-le-Lac and Jean-Eudes College in Montreal. These testimonials are consistent with the professional career of Alexandre Gagné, which we were able to validate.
Alexandre Gagné’s modus operandi with these four students is similar to the one he would have deployed at Stanislas College in the context of these criminal charges, according to our information.
“I do not want to comment on these allegations,” replied Alexandre Gagné, reached by La Presse at his home.
When he saw the economics teacher in the media recently, Vincent (not his real name) says he realized that Alexandre Gagné had been behaving like this “for a long time”.
“I thought to myself: this guy never stopped,” he testifies.
Vincent rubbed shoulders with this teacher when he was doing substitute teaching at the alternative public school Liberté-Jeunesse, in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac.
It was after leaving school, around 2007, that Alexandre Gagné would have contacted the youngster, who was then 15 years old.
“I had long conversations with him on the MSN platform and many exchanges of explicit photos and videos when I was a minor and he knew about it,” says Vincent, who adds that he received and sent photos in the context of these exchanges.
“He played a lot on it, on his role as a porn actor,” the man recalled.
It wasn’t until passing Alexandre Gagné on the street a few years ago that those memories were “rekindled” in Vincent, now in his thirties.
“I was in my puberty, discovering access to pornography and [had] active participation in it, never realizing that it was child pornography,” he recounts. he.
A teacher from this school who rubbed shoulders with Vincent at the time of the events relates that he confided in her a few years ago about Alexandre Gagné.
“I never knew of anything when that teacher was at our school. Unfortunately. I would have reacted. It hurts me to know that other victims have been added over time,” she said.
The Thousand Islands School Service Center confirms that Alexandre Gagné was employed there from 2005 to 2007. “He then left his position within our organization of his own free will,” writes its spokesperson Mélanie Poirier.
At Collège Jean-Eudes, where the teacher worked from 2007 to 2014, “former” students are said to have come forward after an email appeal following the charges against the teacher.
“[…] is it justified, is it not, we directed them to the police,” explains Dominic Blanchette, director general of this private college.
Alexandre Gagné was the geography teacher of Lucie (fictitious name) at Jean-Eudes College in Montreal, in 2011 and 2012.
“While we were at school, other than being quite friendly, he wasn’t out of place. I found him pleasant, he was young, dynamic,” she says.
However, Lucie says that shortly after obtaining her diploma and when she was a minor, the teacher contacted her on Facebook.
“He started writing to me informally, talking about trivial matters. Soon he started talking to me about doing photoshoots,” she said.
She says she received photos of him in “industrial quantity” boxers.
“He was telling me he had taken nude photos. [The conversations] always revolved around the fact that I was young, but I was VIP and I had access to his photos,” says the 28-year-old, who claims that Alexandre Gagné “tried to [the] get on board” by dangling that she too could be part of a modeling agency.
La Presse had access to some of these conversations, as well as a photo that was allegedly sent by the teacher and on which he is dressed only in a bathing suit. The exchanges were spread over two years.
Two other students who attended Jean-Eudes high school during this period gave similar testimonies.
Simon (fictitious name) says he too was contacted by Alexandre Gagné on Facebook a few months after graduating from high school at Jean-Eudes College in 2012. He too describes the teacher as “cool, accessible”.
“He was describing a scene, that we could do together. It was an opportunity for me to become a porn actor like him and to sleep with girls. It was hijacked, but he wanted to see me naked, ”says Simon.
It is on Twitter that Judith says for her part that she was contacted by Alexandre Gagné, a few months after finishing high school, in 2012. “As soon as I graduated, maybe even two days before, he started to m ‘write,’ she said. She was not yet 17 years old.
“I never answered, but he was texting me at 11 p.m., midnight…” she recalled. La Presse had access to these messages. The teacher does not make inappropriate comments.
Until recently, Alexandre Gagné presented himself on Facebook as a “historian, journalist, columnist and pedagogue”. He deleted this account, just like the one on Twitter where he relayed international news.
Host Michel Turcotte has known the local native for a long time. He describes him as “very competent” and “very rigorous”.
“Alex is a straight guy, by the book and always prepared. His international chronicles are always very listened to. It was like a sledgehammer,” said Mr. Turcotte, who added that Alexandre Gagné was replaced.
The director general of the Jean-Eudes college also says that the teachers were “stunned” to learn that charges of sexual exploitation had been filed against Alexandre Gagné.
In this establishment, the teacher’s disciplinary file is “virgin” and no denunciations were made during the seven years he worked there.
“It’s a big disappointment,” said Dominic Blanchette.
Alexandre Gagné has his teaching certificate, he also says, information that the Ministry of Education did not want to confirm.
After leaving Jean-Eudes College, the teacher worked at Notre-Dame College in Montreal, show documents and testimony we obtained. This establishment declined to comment on the matter, arguing that it is confidential information.
Reached by La Presse, the Crown prosecutor in charge of the Gagné case did not want to comment, given the criminal charges already laid. However, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions invites anyone who believes they have been the victim of Alexandre Gagné to contact the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal.
“We take these allegations very seriously and any witnesses will be interviewed seriously,” said Anna Levin, criminal and penal prosecuting attorney.
