The investigation for illegal taking of interest which targeted Sébastien Lecornu since 2019 was closed after the current Minister of Defense agreed to reimburse the sum in dispute, 7,874 euros, announced Friday the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF).
The investigation was dismissed after Mr. Lecornu agreed to regularize the situation and pay Friday the 7,874 euros in chips he had received from the Public Treasury, said the public prosecutor in a press release.
This criminal response appears proportionate to the gravity of the facts attributed to the person concerned and puts an end to the disorder resulting from the offense and prevent the repetition of the facts, given the solemn warning thus addressed to the person concerned, considers the PNF, specifying that the minister had no criminal record.
Nothing has established that Mr. Lecornu had sought to have the interests of the SAPN (the Paris Normandy motorway company), from which he received tokens as a director, prevail over those of the Departmental Council of the ‘Eure he chaired, said the same source.
Mr. Lecornu exercised the functions of administrator of the SAPN between April 14, 2016 and June 2, 2017, in a personal capacity and not as a representative of the local authority which he chaired, recalls the PNF.
Only the effective transfer of cases involving the SAPN or the waiver of this interest would have been likely to prevent the commission of the offense of illegal taking of interests, underlines the prosecution.
The suspicions related to four deliberations voted by Mr. Lecornu, even though he had an interest in SAPN in his capacity as director and beneficiary of attendance fees.
But these four deliberations were proposed by the technical services of the department and adopted unanimously during sessions relating to the vote of very many deliberations, some of which are also part of multi-year programming operations, specifies the financial prosecutor’s office.
In addition, as these operations are part of the relationship between the SAPN and the Departmental Council, no other economic sector has been affected by these decisions, notes the PNF.
In addition, the investigation, entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff), showed that the presence of departmental elected officials on the SAPN Board of Directors corresponded to an old practice, inherited from the time when the SAPN was a public company and which continued after the privatization of this company, further justifies the financial prosecutor’s office.