Montreal doctor who died before sentencing for sexual assault was portrayed as a serial predator at bail hearing

Montreal Gazette

4 days ago

Montreal Crime
By
While Montreal doctor Stephan Probst was on trial last year on charges alleging he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman, other women who previously met the former head of nuclear medicine at the Jewish General Hospital began to wonder about their interactions with him.
This touched off an investigation by Montreal police before Probst and his girlfriend, Wendy Devera, were found guilty on Aug. 29 of sexually assaulting the woman.
In March, before sentencing arguments were heard in his first case, Probst was arrested and a new series of charges were filed against him alleging he sexually assaulted seven other women.
He had a bail hearing and was granted a release. The evidence presented against Probst was placed under a publication ban that was lifted on Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse after a Quebec Court judge was presented with a death certificate confirming Probst died early in June, reportedly by suicide.
During the first trial, the group of women who were following Probst's case closely last year gradually formed a group that shared their experiences on social media and decided to file complaints with the Montreal police.
It was those complaints that led to new charges against Probst in March.
The details from the bail hearing were chilling. Probst was portrayed as a serial predator who carefully planned to drug women before he sexually assaulted them, just as he did with the victim from his first trial.
'I was the perfect gentleman,' Probst wrote in a text message in 2018 to one of the complainants shortly after he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her.
She expressed concerns to Probst that he sexually assaulted her when she passed out in his apartment.
Probst claimed the woman passed out because she couldn't handle wine and insisted he was 'the perfect gentleman.'
The woman, whose is identity is protected by a publication ban, told police she is convinced Probst had unprotected sex with her while she was drugged.
She told the police that on May 30, 2018, she went out on a date with Probst to a restaurant after they introduced themselves through Tinder.
During the bail hearing, prosecutor Delphine Mauger said the woman 'didn't see a future' with Probst as they drank wine at a restaurant and talked about their lives.
The following day, the prosecutor said, the woman was sending Probst messages on Messenger asking him if they had unprotected sex. The woman was unable to recall what happened after they continued drinking wine at his penthouse apartment. She suspected she had been drugged with something placed in the wine.
In a reply, Probst offered to have the woman tested for a sexually transmitted disease while he worked at Jewish General Hospital.
'I'm a good doctor, I swear,' Probst wrote to the woman.
'We'll see about that,' the woman replied.
A couple of days later, Probst told the woman that all they did was 'make out.'
She replied: 'I don't remember anything. It's worrying. F—k, this is so stupid. I've never had unprotected sex,' she wrote.
Probst replied to her concerns by writing: 'I'll know for the next time that you can't hold your alcohol.'
The woman then informed Probst she was going to go to a clinic to be tested. She also told Probst that she didn't want to see him again.
'Do you remember at one point I held down your arms and you said you liked that? You said you liked it when I took control,' Probst said.
Probst and the woman later spoke on the phone, a conversation that she recorded.
'I don't need to spike drinks to get girls,' the prosecutor quoted Probst as saying. Mauger added that Probst 'swore on his mother's life' at that point in the conversation.
It was during the same conversation that Probst claimed he was 'the perfect gentleman' during their date.
The woman went to the police following the conversation, but she ultimately decided not to file a complaint.
Another complainant who said she was convinced she was drugged inside Probst's apartment during 2013 said she had returned from Mexico with a female friend and asked Probst to pick her up at the airport.
She said Probst invited the two women back to his apartment for drinks.
She told the police that after she had a drink she felt 'paralyzed' while Probst 'flirted' with the other woman. She also said she was unable to react when the other woman told Probst to leave her alone after he suddenly wrapped his hands around her neck.
She told the police the other woman got up to leave and invited her to go with her, but she was unable to move.
The complainant alleged that after the other woman left, Probst carried her into his bedroom where he raped her anally. The woman said she regained some of her memories of her time inside Probst's apartment the following day.
Another woman alleged that Probst raped her in 2012 after she had a drink in his apartment. Mauger told the court the woman recounted how she asked Probst to put on a condom, but he laughed at her, ignored her request to wear a condom and proceeded to rape her for a long time.
After hearing the evidence, Quebec Court Judge André Perreault decided to grant Probst bail.
'I don't have difficulty believing him,' the judge said of Probst's claims that the few days he spent detained were very difficult for him.
The judge also noted that Probst had not violated any of the conditions imposed on him while he awaited his sentence in the trial in which he was convicted.
He also expressed doubt the Crown could prove its claim that Probst was a serial rapist. The judge believed Probst might have been acquitted on some of the charges he faced.
Devera, 31, still awaits her sentence in the case in which she was convicted with Probst last year. The case returns to court later this month.
This story was originally published July 29, 2025 at 12:20 PM.