500 euros for an apartment, 1,000 euros for a house: in Narbonne, the corrupt concierge promised HLM housing

La direction de Domitia Habitat a mis à pied son employé et saisi la justice. Archives Midi Libre – OLIVIER GOT

Hired in January, this building caretaker was laid off in April, after complaints received by Domitia Habitat management from several individuals. He was arrested and imprisoned on June 21 for "passive corruption".

Simple personal slippage or more widespread practices ? A judicial investigation was opened last June by the Narbonne public prosecutor's office, following a complaint filed by the social housing office Domitia Habitat, who discovered that one of his employees, a building caretaker hired last January, was getting paid by promising to intervene to allocate housing.

Several letters were sent to the management of the organization, to denounce the fraudulent maneuvers of this 44-year-old man, who was responsible for the maintenance of the common areas of six buildings. At least five people described a similar modus operandi on the part of this individual, who allegedly suggested to them that he could play a key role in their search for a home, when he was ;was busy, wearing a vest bearing the organization's logo, around the buildings.

A meeting at the station and threats

One of them, who was to be evicted from his home, explained that the concierge would have asked him for 500 euros; to find him a new apartment. A father and his son allegedly handed over 1 000 € against the promise of having a house.

From the first letters, the guard was summoned and was fired in April. He then allegedly resumed contact with some of the complainants, threatening them, or proposing a meeting go to Narbonne station to give them their money back. It does not seem that the plaintiffs followed up, according to the mention of this case made on Tuesday, July 9, before the Montpellier Court of Appeal, where the unscrupulous employee requested his release.

Placed in police custody on June 20, the guard admitted the majority of the facts, explaining that he had a pass allowing him to access all the empty accommodations waiting. He would thus have shown the accommodations to those who requested him, to show his credibility, and would then have "lost in his lies", n& ;rsquo;having no power to allocate available apartments.

Already convicted of theft and addicted to games

The fact remains that the hiring of this employee may raise questions, although he prided himself on having several years of experience in the Paris region, where this father of three children lived previously. Four times convicted for thefts and fraud, he is also heavily in debt to the Bank of France, because of an irresistible attraction to online games.

"I've had this addiction for four years, when I got out of prison I thought I had fixed it, but I fell back into the same ways. I'm not looking for excuses, but I want to go out to take care of myself" he explained in front of the investigating chamber.

"It is appropriate to identify all the facts for which he acted" retorts the attorney general, opposed to his release.

"We are only working on hypotheses" protests his lawyer, Me Christian Bégué . "We're talking about other potential victims, but those already heard, that's enough. We have no information on possible accomplices, the people named in the organization chart have not been heard, and whether the offenses with which he is accused were facilitated by his functions, he cannot renew them, since he was laid off."

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