FREE MIDI INFO. Gilles d'Ettore affair: the mayor of Agde hopes to get out of prison in the coming days

The elected official who has already spent several nights behind bars hopes to quickly find freedom. FREE NOON – PIERRE SALIBA

The elected official was placed under arrest warrant on March 21 by the judge of freedom and detention of Béziers after being indicted for "embezzlement of public funds, illegal taking of & rsquo;passive interest and corruption, as well as the clairvoyant who allegedly gave him instructions through the voice of a supernatural being.

He has already spent five nights behind bars, and will have to stay there for at least ten days before hoping to perhaps regain freedom. Gilles d'Ettore, the mayor of Agde and president of the Hérault Méditerranée agglomeration, appealed against his incarceration, decided on Thursday March 21 in the evening at the Béziers judicial court, and which caused the effect of a thunderclap. Indicted for "embezzlement of public funds, illegal taking of interest and passive corruption", the 55-year-old elected official is suspected of having committed embezzlement, the extent of which remains to be established, under the influence of Sophia Martinez, a clairvoyant medium from Agatha whom he consulted for four years, and who was also incarcerated.

Examined within a very short time

The elected official appealed this decision through his lawyer, and the Montpellier Court of Appeal will examine the case within a very short time, we learned Midi Libre with the court: Gilles d'Ettore should appear on Tuesday April 2 at 9 a.m. before the chamber of the ;rsquo;instruction.

"A consensus was formed to note that Gilles d'Ettore was the victim of a fraud and that his behavior, whether faulty or not at this stage, has been disrupted by these fraudulent maneuvers. Now that he is informed of the deception, there is nothing to fear from him. His pre-trial detention, in addition to being contrary to the principle of freedom of our criminal procedure, is now useless in safeguarding the results of this investigation" explains Me Jean-Marc Darrigade, his lawyer.

A public hearing or not ?

It is currently unknown whether this hearing will be public, as is usually the rule before this jurisdiction. In Béziers, the public prosecutor Raphaël Balland had requested that the debate before the judge of liberty take place "in restricted publicity", c& ;rsquo;that is to say behind closed doors.

"IThere is still a lot of investigation to be done, and I ;rsquo;believes that a public debate where elements of the investigation could be revealed would run the risk of undermining these investigations" he explained. The judge followed this request, justifying it thus: "A lot witnesses have not yet been heard, and I do not want information to be relayed by the press."

New facts recently revealed ?

He had incidentally clarified that the prosecution had just launched additional investigations, via "two additional indictments of March 18 and 20 which concern d&rsquo ;other people", which suggests that new facts may have recently been brought to light by investigators.

However, the investigation has been open for a long time, the Béziers public prosecutor's office having referred the matter to an investigating judge on January 5, after a first phase in preliminary from October 5, 2023. And the file accumulated by the Agathois police officers and the criminal financial brigade of the PJ of Hérault is already very voluminous.

Telephone tapping and searches

Several weeks of telephone tapping of the mayor and the clairvoyant, numerous hearings, not to mention the searches carried out on March 19 in the town hall and at the homes of the two protagonists, with seizures of documents, telephones and computers which remain to be exploited.

Not certain in this case that the court of appeal will decide to quickly release the elected official, or to hold a public hearing, even if he’ He acts as a public official, administering a population of 80,000 inhabitants spread over twenty municipalities in his agglomeration. The decision will not be rendered the same day, but will be deliberated, probably within a week, according to usual practice: Gilles d'Ettore could either be released on April 9, or prepare to stay several weeks behind bars.

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