Political blackmail in Saint-Etienne: the former chief of staff of the mayor indicted

Europe1 .fr with AFP 16:47 p.m., April 06, 2023

The former chief of staff of the mayor of Saint-Etienne, Pierre Gauttieri, announced that he had been "indicted in the so-called sex tape case", Thursday leaving the judicial court of Lyon. "I did not wish to respond to the magistrates," Pierre Gauttieri briefly told the journalists present, without specifying the heads of his indictment.

This 55-year-old man was brought Thursday morning before the investigating judges after spending forty hours in custody, in the company of his former boss, the ex-LR Gaël Perdriau, the former municipal assistant Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and the ex-companion of the latter Gilles Rossary-Lenglet.

A compromising video

The affair broke last year when Gilles Rossary-Lenglet revealed to Mediapart the existence of a compromising video shot in January 2015 in which we can see the former centrist first deputy Gilles Artigues, Gaël Perdriau's political rival, being massaged by a man in a hotel room in Paris. This fifty-year-old assured in his confessions that this "barbouzage of morals" had been ordered by the mayor and his entourage in order to neutralize the centrist. And he said he was paid via fictitious services invoiced to two local associations subsidized by the town hall.

He too was indicted Thursday: he "did not evade, he is at the origin of this case, revealed it and assumed his position before the police and judges," said his lawyer Sylvain Cormier to journalists.

"We are waiting for the truth to come out"

"There is an investigation that has gone through the revelations that have been made and lead to these presentations... We are waiting for the truth to come out," he added, without specifying the charges of indictment of his client.

A judicial investigation was opened in September 2022 for "invasion of the intimacy of privacy, aggravated blackmail, embezzlement of public property by a person in charge of a public function, breach of trust and concealment of these offenses", after a complaint by Gilles Artigues.

READ ALSO – Case Gaël Perdriau: the mayor will not resign in case of indictment

Named by Gilles Artigues, placed in custody in mid-September 2022, cited in damning audio recordings, the mayor and president of the metropolis of Saint-Etienne has always claimed his innocence and repeated several times that he would not resign, even in the event of an indictment.

Retirement of Gaël Perdriau

Adamant in his denials, Gaël Perdriau has so far refused to resign from his elected mandates, in the name of the "presumption of innocence". Quickly excluded from LR after a first police custody of a few hours in mid-September 2022, he retired from his duties.

The affair also pushed him to dismiss his chief of staff at the end of September, while his deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme resigned from his mandates at the municipality and the metropolis of Saint-Etienne.