2023-12-29 15:59:41
Two new indictments have taken place as part of the investigation into intimate video blackmail which has shaken the town hall of Saint-Etienne for sixteen months. The artist Philippe Buil and his wife, Chantal Sabatier, aged 59, were indicted on December 7 for “complicity in embezzlement of public funds” and “breach of trust”.
Chantal Sabatier who, with her husband, headed the association Artistes de la Galerie Art Pluriel (AGAP) suspected of having been used to pay the authors of the “sex tape”, confirmed this indictment without wanting to give details of the facts which they are accused of.
The premises of their association were the subject of a search just after the publication of an article Mediapart which caused the scandal to break out. At the end of August 2022, the news site revealed the existence of an intimate video filmed in January 2015 in a Parisian hotel to blackmail the first deputy, Gilles Artigues, a rival of mayor Gaël Perdriau.
Justice had opened an investigation and, on April 6, the councilor was indicted for blackmail, at the same time as his former chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri, his former deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and the ex-companion of this last, Gilles Rossary-Lenglet.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers In Saint-Etienne, the “sextape” scandal continues to traumatize the city
An operation to “deface morals”
Mr. Rossary-Lenglet, who transmitted several damning recordings to Mediapartclaims to have set up this operation “barbouzation of morals” at the request of the mayor and his entourage with the aim of neutralizing the centrist elected official. He claims to have been paid thanks to fictitious services invoiced to two local associations, including AGAP. Created in March 2015, AGAP received a grant of 20,000 euros from the town hall four months later.
Concerning these suspicious subsidies, Gaël Perdriau was placed under the status of “assisted witness” for “misappropriation of public funds by a depositary of public authority”. The mayor of Saint-Etienne, 51, has always proclaimed his innocence. Excluded from the Les Républicains party, he refused to cede his elective functions, while withdrawing from the metropolis, of which he remains president.
At the end of September, Mr. Rossary-Lenglet sent to the courts and to Mediapart a new recording, relating to a blackmail project, dating back to June 2015, against former mayor Michel Thiollière. The investigating magistrates have not yet announced what action they intend to give to this new element.
#people #indicted