Only the manager of the massage parlor in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (Val-de-Marne), VIP of Beauty, was sentenced to two years in prison for procuring.
Wednesday afternoon, the Criminal Court of Créteil released her husband, Franck, and David, the latter's cousin, from this prevention chief.
The first was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence, in particular for money laundering, and the second to a fine of 3,000 euros for carrying out concealed work.
During her requisitions, the prosecutor had asked for up to three years in prison against the manager of the salon and her husband, for acts committed from February to May 2021. She had required 18 months in prison, including six suspended sentences for the cousin .
The prevention date has also been reduced, the show being closed since March 19 due to a new confinement.
Customers admit that they have been offered "a manual finish"
This case started on February 10, 2021 with a simple check by the Departmental Anti-Fraud Operational Committee (Codaf).
Immediately, something jumps out to the police.
“Two masseuses are simply dressed in a nightie, describes the public prosecutor during her requisitions.
A masseuse also says that she must wear it to attract clients.
One of them is totally naked.
The police then set up surveillance and questioned half a dozen customers.
All recognize that they have been offered a "manual finish", for a supplement of 15 to 30 euros.
Some admit to having accepted.
"It's prostitution hidden behind the front of a massage parlor," said the prosecutor, who noted that there were two masseuses in the establishment at all times.
This practice is not an exception in the department.
Read alsoVal-de-Marne: the massage parlor offered "hand finishes" for € 50
To support their case, investigators dive into the accounts.
For payments in cash, as for those made with the bank card, most of the sums paid "do not correspond to the rates of care displayed in the salon", notes the prosecutor who recalls that on a sheet of accounts written in Chinese, is noted the treatment "accompanied by a tip as appropriate".
The defendant mentions translation errors
At the helm, the manager of the salon, aged 58, a Chinese sans-papiers married for ten years to Franck, has repeatedly contradicted her own statements made during police custody. “You recognized the manual finishes,” the president is surprised. "No, it's a translation error," said Yu, who has been imprisoned since the hearing last May. According to her, she or her collaborators are foreign to this type of activity. She just admits having employed two masseuses, also undocumented. "She went back on everything she could say," said the prosecutor disillusioned during her requisitions.
Franck, for his part, hardly seemed to know the place.
Confused by the demarcation of his telephone, he ended up admitting to going to Saint-Maur-des-Fossés almost daily but not to go to the salon.
“I spent my time with garage mechanic friends.
I restore old cars ”, explains this man in his fifties, banned from banking after fraud cases.
He has also justified his income by selling these old cars, most often in black.
"Not the beginning of the beginning of proof", believes a lawyer
So to be able to offer this salon to his wife, even if the man has bought the business, David, unknown to the courts, signs the papers necessary for the operation.
"He's the idiot of the family," laments the latter's defender, Me Margaux Mazier.
"In this case, there is not the beginning of the beginning of a proof, notes, rather exasperated, Me Marcel Baldo, the lawyer of the couple. The show was opened in 2017, there has never been a complaint related to pimping. No customer has been prosecuted. "
