Paris (AFP)
The Paris Assize Court on Wednesday sentenced the former Secretary of State Georges Tron to five years in prison, including three years in prison, for rape and sexual assault in a meeting on an employee of his town hall in Draveil in 2009- 2010.
His co-accused Brigitte Gruel, then his assistant for Culture in this commune of Essonne, was given a two-year suspended sentence.
The court, however, acquitted the two accused of similar acts alleged against them by a second complainant.
Mr Tron and Ms Gruel were acquitted at first instance in 2018.
At the end of an eleven-hour deliberation, the rape and sexual assault in meeting on Virginie Ettel on two occasions, in November 2009 and in January 2010, "are established by the constant and detailed statements of the victim," said the president of the court by reading the verdict of the court.
On reading it, the other complainant, Eva Loubrieu, burst into tears and stormed out of the room.
Georges Tron, 63, listened to the sentence without letting the slightest emotion show through.
He gave his watch to his lawyer Antoine Vey, made a phone call, then went to stand in the glass box of the accused.
This verdict goes beyond the requisitions of the public prosecutor as regards Georges Tron.
The attorney general had requested five years in prison, three of which were suspended, against the 63-year-old councilor and requested that the firm sentence be carried out instead under an electronic bracelet.
The two defendants deny the facts alleged and maintained that the "lies" of the plaintiffs were part of a "plot" fomented by the political opponents of Georges Tron in Essonne.
© 2021 AFP