Six years in prison were requested Tuesday against Pascal Payet, a figure of organized crime nicknamed the "king of escape", tried before the judicial court of Paris alongside eleven other people for "attempted extortion".
Against the eleven other defendants, including a woman, tried for attempted extortion in an organized gang and criminal association, the prosecutor requested sentences ranging from 30 months to 9 years of detention. "Many defendants have long criminal records. Most are in a state of legal recidivism, "noted the prosecutor.
Dispute Resolution
The case was decided on September 7, 2020. Three men including Pascal Payet approach a young businessman and Parisian poker player having dinner with a friend in a chic Parisian restaurant. One of the men who addresses the young man by his first name, Kevin, asks him for the sum of 400,000 euros to "ensure his protection". They give Kevin D. 48 hours to raise the money and advise him to "not do the smart thing."
During the hearing, Pascal Payet, 59, gray hair and thin glasses, explained that his role had been to try to settle a dispute between two individuals, one of whom owed a large sum of money to the other. According to his version, he simply asked Kevin D. to "pay his debt" before backtracking the next day "on the advice of a friend" who would have sniffed a confusion. For the prosecution, Pascal Payet's reversal, telling Kevin D. that he had no more debt 24 hours after threatening him, is due to the realization that Kevin D. had contacted the police.
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Pascal Payet has already spent 28 years behind bars. He was released on parole in 2019. In total, his criminal record is fraught with nine convictions for burglary, criminal conspiracy and armed robbery, one of which resulted in the death of a cash courier. "This criminal past at all levels, it's a disaster. For me, my loved ones and for the victims of my actions," he said at the hearing.
Originally from Montpellier, he caused a sensation in July 2007 when he escaped by helicopter from the prison of Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes), where he was serving a 30-year sentence for the murder of a cash courier in 1997. He thus renewed a spectacular escape already by air, in October 2001, from the prison of Luynes (Bouches-du-Rhône). His escapes lasted a year and a half the first time, two months in 2007. In April 2003, while on the run, he had escaped from Luynes prison, still with a helicopter, three of his "friends" prisoners. The four thugs were arrested on 9 May 2003 in Vaucluse. The court's decision is expected Thursday or Friday.
