The mayor of Moulins Pierre-André Périssol (LR) was sentenced Thursday February 1 by the criminal court of Cusset (Allier) to a fine of 3,000 euros for
“illegal taking of interests”
, we learned from the prosecution .
The sentence is lower than the demands of the public prosecutor, who had requested a one-year suspended prison sentence for Pierre-André Périssol, as well as five years of ineligibility.
Found guilty of
“illegal taking of interests by a public elected official”
, Pierre-André Périssol was on the other hand acquitted of
“forgery in an administrative document by a person holding public authority”
.
He was accused of having favored between 2017 and 2021 the merger of two HLM offices with a private law company, France Loire.
However, this was a subsidiary of the Arcade group, of which he was a director and which he had founded in the 1980s.
“Partial” investigation
If the merits of the operation itself had not been discussed at the hearing on December 14, the mayor's involvement had been at the heart of the discussions.
At the helm, the elected official rejected any illegal taking of interests:
“I did not know the leaders of France Loire, and no decision came back to Arcade.
It was the France Loire board of directors which decided on this arrangement
,” he said.
He had also forcefully contested being the
“executive director of Arcade”
, as the prosecutor had designated him, claiming to hold only 10 shares out of 500 in the holding company of the group specializing in social housing.
His lawyer, Maître Levent Saban, had pleaded for acquittal and requested the nullity of the procedure, pointing to a
“biased”
investigation .
“I am satisfied to note that the court recognized the total absence of prejudice in the solution adopted”
of merging the establishments, he declared to AFP after the judgment.
He also underlined that the court had recognized
“the absence of personal enrichment”
for the benefit of Pierre-André Périssol, also welcoming the acquittal for the offense of
“forgery”
.