Paris (AFP)
Six people, including the former LR mayor of Corbeil-Essonnes and right-hand man of Serge Dassault, Jean-Pierre Bechter, were sentenced Thursday in Paris to terms of one to two years in prison, for having participated in a system purchase of votes in the municipal elections of 2009 and 2010.
A decade after the events, the court confirmed the existence, at the dawn of the 2010s, of a pyramidal electoral corruption system in this commune of Essonne, fueled by the fortune of the billionaire aircraft manufacturer, who died in 2018.
A "Dassault system" which consisted in recruiting teams of districts to convince the inhabitants to vote for the list led by Jean-Pierre Bechter in exchange for money, promises of housing or employment.
"Recurrent, brought to the status of an institution", it operated with "hidden means of payment" and "highly paid influence groups", described the president of the court during the reading of the judgment.
"It is at the very least 12.5 million euros that Serge Dassault has, in all illegality, invested in his electoral campaigns", declared the magistrate, that is to say "the price of the OPA on Corbeil-Essonnes".
"The facts are of a particular gravity", "likely to strongly degrade the confidence of the citizens towards their elected officials and, beyond, to discredit the functioning of the democracy", rebuked the court, underlining the "chaos" generated in the town - "assaults", "burglaries", "malicious calls", "attempted assassinations" ...
- "Straw Mayor" -
In 2009, Serge Dassault, UMP mayor since 1995, was declared ineligible after the cancellation by the Council of State of his re-election the previous year, because of suspicious "donations of money".
He then passed the hand to Jean-Pierre Bechter who had won a first by-election in 2009, again invalidated because the name of Dassault appeared on his ballots.
Mr. Bechter finally won the town hall in December 2010.
In these two elections, he was a "straw mayor", "the main beneficiary of the system", the court ruled, which sentenced him to two years in prison for buying votes and illegal financing of the electoral campaign;
a sentence to be served in house arrest under electronic surveillance.
"He is innocent so he appealed, for himself and for the city of Corbeil-Essonnes, of which he was the mayor for 10 years," responded his lawyer Sébastien Schapira.
The former deputy mayor Jacques Lebigre, 79, was sentenced to 2 years in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros.
He also appealed.
His lawyer Julien Andreza denounced a "court (which) behaved in this case in the registration chamber of the order for reference".
- Intermediaries -
Former Housing Assistant Christella de Oliveira, 42, who was prosecuted for laundering illegal campaign financing and concealment, but not for having paid activists, was however sentenced to 18 months in prison, including 6 months suspended.
Younès Bounouara, 48, was sentenced to 2 years in prison for having been an intermediary.
The court refused to confuse the sentence with that of 15 years he is serving for an assassination attempt linked to these suspicions of vote buying.
Two other men were found guilty of having been the linchpins of the system: Machiré Gassama, 43, former director of Youth and Sports (one year in prison) and Mounir Labidi, a 36-year-old former municipal officer absent at the trial (two years in prison).
Mr. Gassama's lawyer said his client would appeal.
All were also sentenced to 5 years of ineligibility.
The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) had requested at the hearing in early November 4 years in prison and 100,000 euros fine against Mr. Bechter, as well as 2 years and 15,000 euros fine for the five other defendants .
"It is a good judgment, balanced, very serious", reacted Jérôme Karsenti, lawyer of Anticor, civil party to whom the court awarded 30,000 euros in damages.
The defendants were also ordered to pay 1 euro in damages and legal costs to the new left-wing mayor, Bruno Piriou, elected in June in place of Mr. Bechter, as well as to the town itself.
© 2020 AFP