The ex-LR mayor of Saint-Etienne Gaël Perdriau, mired in a case of political sex-tape blackmail which has shaken his city since September 2022, was brought to the Lyon courthouse on Thursday morning, the prosecution announced in a communicated.
The 50-year-old elected official was placed in police custody on Tuesday afternoon along with his former chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri, his former deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and the latter's ex-companion Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, behind the case revealed by Mediapart, according to information obtained by AFP.
“The four people placed in police custody in the context of the so-called intimate video blackmail case of Saint-Etienne are brought today before the investigating magistrates in charge of this judicial investigation”, indicates the Lyon prosecutor’s office.
The affair broke out last year when Mr. Rossary-Lenglet revealed to Mediapart the existence of a compromising video shot in January 2015 in which we can see the centrist former first deputy Gilles Artigues, Gaël's political rival. Perdriau, being massaged by a man in a hotel room in Paris.
The Stéphanois assured in his confessions that this "marbling of morals" had been sponsored by the mayor and his entourage in order to neutralize the centrist. And he said he had been paid via fictitious services billed to two local cultural associations subsidized by the town hall.
A judicial investigation was opened in September 2022 for "invasion of privacy, aggravated blackmail, embezzlement of public property by a person in charge of a public function, breach of trust and concealment of these offences", after a complaint from Mr. Artigues.
Namely accused by Mr. Artigues, placed in police custody in mid-September 2022, quoted in damning audio recordings, the elected official has always claimed his innocence and repeated several times that he would not resign, even in the event of an indictment .
Arched in his denials, Gaël Perdriau has so far stood up to his local political opponents by refusing to resign from his elective mandates, in the name of the "presumption of innocence".
Quickly excluded from LR after a first police custody of a few hours in mid-September 2022, he retired from his duties without giving up his mandates at the head of the municipality and the Metropolis, bringing together 53 municipalities and 400,000 inhabitants.
The affair also prompted him to quickly dismiss his chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri, while his deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme resigned from his mandates at the municipality and the metropolis of Saint-Etienne.
06/04/2023 11:20:25 - Lyon (AFP) © 2023 AFP
