Paris (AFP)

Jean-Pierre Bechter, former LR mayor of Corbeil-Essonnes (Essonne) and ex-right hand of Serge Dassault, was sentenced Thursday in Paris to two years in prison for buying votes and illegal financing of the electoral campaign, during the elections municipal elections in 2009 and 2010.

The criminal court also sentenced two former deputies to the town hall as well as three men considered to be intermediaries in the electoral corruption system to terms ranging from one to two years in prison.

All are also sentenced to 5 years of ineligibility.

The defendants, who disputed the facts, were prosecuted for having participated, at different levels, in a system of pyramidal electoral corruption consisting in recruiting teams in the neighborhoods in order to convince the inhabitants to go and vote for Camp Dassault.

In exchange: donations of money, promises of housing or employment, the financing of training or a permit ... All fed by the colossal fortune of the former industrialist Serge Dassault, with the aim of to keep this city of 50,000 inhabitants located south of the capital.

"The facts are particularly serious when it comes to breaches of the rules of democracy. They are likely to greatly degrade the confidence of citizens in their elected representatives and, beyond that, to discredit the functioning of democracy", criticized the president of the court in her judgment.

Jean-Pierre Bechter, 76, head of the list in 2009 and 2010, was the "main beneficiary of the Dassault system", said the president, speaking of a man who was at the time only a "mayor of straw "having taken over from Serge Dassault.

Indicted in 2014 in this case, the billionaire died in 2018 at the age of 93, before the end of the investigation.

Jean-Pierre Bechter was sentenced to two years, in house arrest under electronic surveillance.

Mr. Bechter's lawyer, Sébastien Schapira, immediately indicated that his client, "who is innocent", was going to appeal "for himself and for the town hall of Corbeil-Essonnes, of which he was mayor for 10 years".

Jacques Lebigre, 79, former deputy of this town hall, was sentenced to 2 years in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros.

His lawyer has also indicated that he will appeal.

The former Housing Assistant Christella de Oliveira, 42, who was not prosecuted for having paid activists, was however sentenced to 18 months in prison, including 6 months suspended.

Considered an intermediary in this system, Younès Bounouara, 48, was sentenced to 2 years in prison.

The court refused to confuse the sentence with that to which he was sentenced on appeal in 2018 for an assassination attempt linked to these suspicions of vote buying.

Machiré Gassama, 43, former director of Youth and Sports at the town hall, was, for his part, given a year in prison, for having been a linchpin of this system, like Mounir Labidi, a former municipal agent of 36 years absent at the trial, who was sentenced to 2 years in prison.

The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) had requested at the hearing 4 years in prison and 100,000 euros fine against Mr. Bechter, as well as 2 years and 15,000 euros fine for the other five defendants.

© 2020 AFP