Le Figaro Lyon
Hervé Legros, founding president of the promoter Alila, was taken into police custody along with his wife this Thursday in Lyon.
In the sights of justice for more than a year, the former golden boy of real estate development was summoned by the courts following a letter rogatory from an investigating judge.
In October 2022, the Lyon public prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation against him for “concealed work, moral harassment at work, fraud, abuse of corporate assets, concealment of abuse of corporate assets, forgery and use of forgery, violence aggravated and threats or acts of intimidation,” the prosecutor’s office indicated to Le
Figaro
.
16 complaints
The story of Hervé Legros is that of a 20-year-old boy who, with a CAP in plumbing in his pocket, founded a real estate development giant specializing in the construction of HLM.
A man by turns
“singular”
,
“exuberant”
,
“talented”
,
“undrinkable”,
according to those who worked with him, finally caught up by the courts at the end of 2022 after the filing of complaints by sixteen employees denouncing his
“mockery”
,
“permanent solicitations”
,
“pressure”
or even
“public humiliation”
.
Their hearings illustrate the portrait drawn up in Le
Figaro
at the beginning of 2023 by several people who worked with the founder of the Alila company, as that of an authoritarian man with brutal methods.
His lawyer, Me Alain Jakubowicz, tenor of the Lyon bar, described these complaints
as “settling of scores from former employees who came to throw things away”.
“He is an extraordinary character who has too much success and in Lyon, we don't like protruding heads,”
he added.
Read also HLM, promoter Alila’s martingale
Hervé Legros defends himself on Linkedin
At the beginning of 2023, the Lyon industrial tribunal ordered him to pay nearly 45,000 euros in compensation to a former personal collaborator for
“moral harassment”
,
“null dismissal”
as well as
“back pay”
.
Conviction which his lawyers appealed.
“This judgment, which is not final, is the only one which handed down a conviction for moral harassment,”
assured Me Aline Jamen, Hervé Legros’s lawyer in March 2023.
In a calmer media context, a labor tribunal "men from another jurisdiction rejected the same accusations barely two days before the relevant judgment."
Alila's boss seemed to be expecting this new meeting with the law.
In a long message posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday, he announced this invitation to his professional network.
“I recently decided to speak out again after a long silence.
(…) When I learned that, on February 1, I would have to be heard again to cooperate in the investigation of which I am the subject
,” he wrote in particular, quoting Francis in turn Cabrel or Enzo Ferrari.
And added:
“I hope to be able to have confidence in the justice of my country, in its sense of discernment.
I dreamed of the Alila group, I will ensure that it continues to live.
Honor or dishonor is not in the sword, but in the hand that grips it.
There will never be any difference in my eyes between winning and living.”