A 59-year-old magistrate, former investigating judge at the Lyon court, was sentenced Monday by the correctional court of Chambéry (Savoie) for contempt of persons holding public authority.
The court sentenced him to a fine of 1,000 euros, excluding at the same time the registration of this sentence in his criminal record. During the hearing on October 13, prosecutor Fanny Reyreaud had requested this entry in the record – which would have marked the end of the career of the defendant – as well as a 2000 euro fine. “Nobody here can claim that my client is not a great magistrate“, retorted in defense Me Gabriel Versini-Bullara, who had requested the release.
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On April 3, 2019, after a dinner at the restaurant on his return from a training he had given in Aix-en-Provence on awareness of criminal procedure in the context of transport control, the Lyon magistrate had been removed his car by the Lyon municipal pound, while it was parked in front of a private garage entrance. Once at the pound, he had firmly asked to recover his vehicle in which there were instruction documents. “I was preparing one of the most important legal operations of the year on the national territory“, he said at the bar of the court.
The situation then escalated. Three municipal police officers had filed a contempt complaint. Others had heard commentscontemptuous but not necessarily illegal“. “I was annoyed, sure. Scornful, it’s their feeling“added the magistrate, saying to himself”sorryof that. This highly rated magistrate was the subject of proceedings before the Superior Council of the Judiciary. In its decision of July 7, the body pronounced a lowering of level and an automatic displacement of the magistrate, because of this incident. He now officiates at Pontoise.
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