The former first deputy mayor of Saint-Etienne accuses Gaël Perdriau and Samy Kefi-Jérôme of having set a trap for him.
A complaint foraggravated blackmailwas filed on Monday August 29 against the mayor of Saint-Etienne Gaël Perdriau (LR) by his former first deputy Gilles Artigues (UDI), after revelations from Médiapart about alleged manipulation of the sextape, we learned from consistent sources.
This complaint foraggravated blackmail, ambush in an organized gang, embezzlement of public funds and non-denunciation of criminal actsfollows the publication on Friday by Médiapart of an investigation claiming that a deputy mayor, Samy Kefi-Jérôme, had organized a filmed meeting with a gay escort to trap and muzzle Gilles Artigues.
The complaint was received Monday morning and the case was moved to Lyon on the instructions of the general prosecutor at the Lyon court of appeal, the public prosecutor of Saint-Etienne, David Charmatz, told AFP.
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Médiapart, which published compromising images taken from the video, relies on the revelations of Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, who claims to have organized at the end of 2014 with his then companion, Samy Kefi-Jérôme, the meeting between Gilles Artigues and a escort in a Parisian hotel room.
According to him, this video would then have allowed the municipal team of Gaël Perdriau and his chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri to politically control the father of the family and to dissuade him from a possible dissidence. His candidacy for the second round of municipal elections in 2008 divided the right and contributed to the election of Maurice Vincent (PS).
The defendants strongly deny
Affected by this complaint alongside MM. Rossary-Lenglet and Samy Kefi-Jérôme, Gaël Perdriau said on Saturday that he had “at this stage no comments to make on a video» which he affirms not to see seen, and disputes «firmly any notion of blackmail against Gilles Artigues“.
Gilles Artigues, who resigned last May from his position as first deputy, declared on his Facebook account on Monday that this blackmail had “rotten (the) life“. “This life which is so beautiful and which I have several times thought of leaving, so desperate was I“, Assures the 57-year-old former deputy for the Loire (2002-2007), who had abruptly interrupted his legislative campaign in the spring despite his LR-UDI nomination.
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