Le Figaro Lyon
The documents seized aim to support the financial aspect of the investigation.
Judicial police investigators responsible for the intimate video blackmail case involving the mayor of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau (ex-LR), carried out a new search at the town hall to seize archives, last Thursday, we learned from consistent sources.
According to certain accounts, the authors of the sex tape were paid via municipal subsidies, through fictitious services invoiced to two local associations.
It was
“following Gaël Perdriau’s latest statements before the
Lyon judges” responsible for the case that the latter asked the police to
“seize a certain number of administrative documents mentioned in his statement
,” the office of the president told AFP. mayor.
Also, this search
“is part of the normal procedure of an investigation which is in progress”
, according to the same source.
“The investigators were particularly looking for official documents such as minutes of deliberations of the municipal council (...) they knew precisely what they were looking for
,” a well-informed source told AFP.
Escort boy and embezzlement of public funds
Gaël Perdriau was indicted in April 2023 for
“blackmail”
in this affair, then in January for
“participation in a criminal association”
and
“embezzlement of public funds by a depositary of public authority”
.
The mayor and president of the metropolis of Saint-Étienne has always proclaimed his innocence and refused to resign.
At the heart of the scandal, his possible role in the shooting in January 2015 and the use of a recording in which we see his centrist ex-first deputy Gilles Artigues being massaged by an
escort boy
in a hotel room.
His former chief of staff, also indicted in this affair, affirmed that Gaël Perdriau had given the
“green light”
to the blackmail and managed its financing, according to minutes obtained by
Mediapart
, at the origin of the revelation of the case in August 2022. The Lyon magistrates will organize confrontations between the protagonists in this case in April, we learned from several of their lawyers.