The court significantly reduced the sentence pronounced at first instance.
Although less severe than the judgment of first instance, the judgment delivered Monday by the Paris Court of Appeal constitutes a setback for François and Penelope Fillon. The couple, who did not consider it appropriate to attend the pronouncement of the sentence, were again found guilty of having orchestrated for their benefit and to the detriment, in particular, of the National Assembly, a system of fictitious jobs .
The former prime minister, 68, has his sentence reduced from 5 years, 3 of which are closed, to 4 years, 1 of which is closed. The firm part, if it becomes final, will be arranged by a sentence enforcement judge; at the hearing, the public prosecutor’s office had requested the execution in the form of wearing an electronic bracelet. According to the judgment, Mr. Fillon will also have to pay the maximum fine of 375,000 euros provided for in the context of the offenses targeted (embezzlement of public funds, complicity in the misuse of corporate assets and concealment). The former parliamentarian also suffered the affront of an additional ten-year sentence of ineligibility.
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Mme Fillon, she is sentenced to 2 years in prison suspended (against 3 at first instance), 375,000 euros fine and 2 years of ineligibility. Marc Joulaud, former substitute for her husband then supposed employer of Penelope Fillon, is for his part sentenced to 3 years suspended sentence and 5 years of ineligibility. It should be noted that the Court of Appeal acquitted the Fillon spouses concerning one of the three disputed contracts as parliamentary assistant to Penelope Fillon, between 1998 and 2002, “benefit of the doubt”. But, unsurprisingly, she considers that the contract of ” literary advisor » by Mme Fillon at the Review of the Two Worldswas fine “fictitious”.
The civil component will also seriously strain the savings of the Fillon and Mr. Joulaud spouses, who will also have to pay some 800,000 euros to the National Assembly, civil party – less than the total damage estimated in the first instance at 1,081,219, 51 euros, since the partial release reduces the amount.
Victim of a political conspiracy
The three convicts announced that they were going to lodge an appeal in cassation, in order to submit to the supreme court“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”. This appeal suspends the execution of the imposed sentence.
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The Fillon affair broke out in the middle of the 2017 presidential campaign. The one who was then the designated candidate of the Republicans is accused by the chained duck, four months before the first round, of having had his wife paid by the National Assembly for a fictitious job as a parliamentary assistant. Then, when he had joined the Senate, he would have given his deputy at the Palais Bourbon the instruction to continue to generously pay Mrs.me Fillon for works of which no trace has been found either. Finally, the former head of government of Nicolas Sarkozy would have obtained from Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, owner of theReview of the Two Worlds, hiring his wife for non-existent benefits. Judged in parallel, the businessman used the procedure of “to plead guilty», establishing the existence of the crime.
Justice had opened a judicial investigation in record time. Faced with the breathtaking zeal of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), the defense is not giving up. Until the end, the defendants protested their right, Mr. Fillon maintaining that his wife, born in Wales, was his most precious collaborator from his first term.
The passion of M e Lévy came up against the impossibility of establishing the materiality of the interventions of Penelope Fillon in the context of the political activities of her husband
The lawyer of the ex-elected, Mand Antonin Lévy, attack on two fronts: the incompetence of a judicial body to judge such facts, and the thesis according to which his client would be the victim of a political plot relayed by a complacent PNF, intended to dismiss from the Élysée the one who was the favorite.
The passion of Mand Lévy came up against the impossibility of establishing the materiality of Penelope Fillon’s interventions in the context of her husband’s political activities. On appeal, although the pugnacity of the defense obviously bore some fruit, the release seemed out of reach. In view of the sums embezzled, leniency too.
SEE ALSO – François Fillon and his wife fixed on appeal in the case of suspicions of fictitious jobs