Three years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros were requested Monday in Marseille against Robert Cassone, short-lived ex-president in 2002 of the OGC Nice football club and son of Roland Cassone, alleged figure in the Marseille community, for attempts to organized gang fraud.
Tried in the company of a forger, an intermediary and unofficial real estate loan brokers, Robert Cassone, 57, had requested five banking establishments in 2013, for a loan of 320,000 euros, in order to finance the work of a villa that he built in Corbara (Haute-Corsica).
The file submitted to the banks was assembled with false pay slips and false tax notices, suggesting that Robert Cassone, so-called medical delegate, and his partner, presented as a territorial civil servant, had 62,000 euros in annual income.
The couple's official resources were in fact made up of his partner's salary of 1,800 euros alone.
At the hearing, Robert Cassone said he was
"caught in a spiral"
, having
"followed like an idiot the sales pitches"
of a duo of pseudo-real estate loan brokers and assured that he was
"not aware of the file that 'they went up'
.
“He did not initiate this false case
,” also argued his defender, Me Jean-André Albertini, who called for his release.
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Prison also requested against his partner
A sentence of 24 months in prison, including twelve months suspended, and a fine of 30,000 euros were requested against his partner,
“who had, according to the prosecutor, a driving role in the search for a real estate loan at all costs »
.
A two-year prison sentence and a fine of 30,000 euros were requested against one of the two clandestine brokers, who admitted to having put together the false loan file with documents provided by a forger in whom traces of 350 other falsified files.
Robert Cassone and his partner were also judged for failure to prove their resources, their expenses having been estimated between 4,000 and 12,000 euros per month.
Robert Cassone spoke of income from a sublet and also explained that he benefited in 2008 from an undeclared payment of 600,000 euros into an account in Switzerland, a donation from his successor at the head of OGC Nice to the time.
The court mentioned Robert Cassone's projects with several members of the banditry: management of a nightclub in Cannes, takeover of an establishment near the Champs-Élysées, but also investment in a casino in Romania with Frank Colin, one of the main players in the Air Cocaine case, the famous case of importation by private plane of hundreds of kilos of drugs from the Caribbean.
The judgment was reserved until March 25.