The Penelopegate trial will have to wait a little longer. Three years after the explosion of the case which had pulverized the presidential campaign of François Fillon, was to come this Monday the time of justice. But now, a request for a referral made by the defense in support of the lawyers' strike against the reform of their autonomous pension plan requires a postponement for this Wednesday.
Three more days of waiting, therefore, to find out how the ex-Prime Minister, his wife Penelope and his former alternate will respond to the suspicions of fictitious jobs of Mrs. Fillon. A trial, which despite this downtime, promises to be as resounding as was the fall of the candidate of the right, a champion of integrity to which the Elysée seemed promised, finally eliminated on the evening of the first round.
François Fillon, 65, left politics on his bitter failure on April 23, 2017. Converted into finance, he assures that "the proofs" of the reality of his wife's work "will be brought during the trial". Justice had seized the same day of the first revelations of a long series, January 25, 2017 in the Duck chained.
Two years of investigation
The examining magistrates, who investigated for more than two years, became convinced that Penelope Fillon, 64, had benefited from “fictitious” jobs as parliamentary assistant to her deputy husband and her deputy in Sarthe Marc Joulaud. Part of the charges of embezzlement, concealment or concealment, which date back to 1981, are time-barred. In the 1998-2013 period alone, more than one million euros of public money was "embezzled", believe the investigators.
The Fillon are also being prosecuted for concealment and complicity in the misuse of corporate assets, for the employment of “literary advisor” obtained by Ms. Fillon in the Revue des deux mondes by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, friend of François Fillon, paid 135,000 euros between 2012 and 2013. A job "of pure convenience, without real consideration" according to the prosecution, for which the billionaire was sentenced for misuse of corporate property at the end of a separate procedure "plead guilty".
