Penelopegate: François Fillon sentenced on appeal to one year in prison



NOTAnother milestone in the legal marathon of the Fillon couple. The Paris Court of Appeal sentenced the former Prime Minister to four years in prison on Monday, including one year, in the case of fictitious jobs targeting him and his wife, Penelope. The file had sealed in 2017 the presidential campaign of the candidate of the right, a time favorite, but finally eliminated in the first round. François Fillon was also fined 375,000 euros and a ten-year ineligibility sentence.

Penelope Fillon was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 375,000 euros. François Fillon’s former deputy, Marc Joulaud, received a three-year suspended prison sentence. Ineligibility sentences of two and five years were also pronounced against them.

François Fillon, 68, and Penelope Fillon, 66, who have contested any fictitious employment from the outset, were not present when the decision was announced, nor was the former deputy of the first to the post of deputy in the Sarthe, Marc Joulaud, 54 years old. Withdrawn from political life, François Fillon announced at the end of February, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that he would resign from his mandates on the boards of directors of the petrochemical giant Sibur and Zarubezhneft (hydrocarbons).

READ ALSOSolère, Fillon, Sarkozy: against political interference in sensitive matters

Partial relaxation

The three defendants were finally ordered to pay around 800,000 euros to the National Assembly, as a civil party.

The couple and the former substitute will appeal to the Court of Cassation, which suspends the criminal sanctions. The payment of damages, on the other hand, is not frozen and could be claimed immediately by the lower house of Parliament.

If the Court of Appeal cleared the couple concerning Penelope Fillon’s first parliamentary assistant contract between 1998 and 2002, “it did not draw the consequences of its own findings on the evidence provided of the reality of the work accomplished by Mrs. Fillon” for the other two contracts, said the defense lawyers in a press release. “This question, as well as the important legal issues relating in particular to the violation of the separation of powers, the unfair conduct of this procedure or the acquisition of prescription, will have to be analyzed by the Court of Cassation”, continue advice.

READ ALSOThe National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in the dock

These penalties for embezzlement of public funds, complicity in the misuse of corporate assets and concealment of these two offenses in particular, are lighter than those pronounced at first instance, on June 29, 2020. François Fillon was then sentenced to five years in prison, including two years firm, and his wife had received a three-year suspended prison sentence, the penalties of fine and ineligibility being identical. Marc Joulaud had been sentenced, in addition, to a fine of 20,000 euros.

Unlike the court, the court of appeal released the spouses on the first of the three disputed contracts as parliamentary assistant to Penelope Fillon “for the benefit of the doubt”. Beyond a reduction in penalties, this assessment leads to a reduction in the amount of damages for the National Assembly – which had been awarded around one million euros in the first instance.

READ ALSOFillon trial: Bardamu and Madame Bovary invite themselves before the magistrates

“Impalpable” work

The court also released the couple in the employment section of the two eldest of their children in 2006-2007, when François Fillon was a senator.

The appeal court, on the other hand, confirmed the fictitious nature of Ms. Fillon’s activities with Marc Joulaud, who had replaced Mr. Fillon as deputy for Sarthe between 2002 and 2007, as well as those of the Franco-Welshwoman again with her husband, in 2012-2013. Similarly, the courts again considered that Penelope Fillon’s “literary advisor” contract at the Review of two worlds in 2012-2013 had no consistency.

At the helm during the appeal trial from November 15 to 30, in a much less electric atmosphere than at the first trial, the couple had maintained the same defense, identical since the origin of this case: the work of Ms. Fillon, ” on the ground” in the Sarthe, was certainly “immaterial”, but very “real”.

READ ALSOFrançois and Penelope Fillon in court: season 2

The Court of Appeal almost followed the requisitions of the General Prosecutor’s Office. The public prosecutor had, on the other hand, considered that the three contracts were fictitious, speaking of “intangible” or even “evanescent” activities – it can also appeal to the Court of Cassation.



Source link -82