A magistrate at the Agen Court of Appeal (Lot-et-Garonne) was placed in police custody on Wednesday as part of an investigation relating in particular to her links with an alleged member of Corsican banditry, we learned from sources close to the case and the Nice prosecutor's office.
“I confirm that a magistrate was placed in police custody on Wednesday as part of a preliminary investigation followed by the Nice prosecutor's office, opened on charges of appeal by an organized gang serving people carrying out hidden work, money laundering, trafficking active and passive influence
,” Damien Martinelli, Nice prosecutor, told AFP.
“She is also in police custody for forgery of public documents by a person holding public authority and use of these forgeries as well as embezzlement of public funds
,” he added.
This is Hélène Gerhards, magistrate at the Agen Court of Appeal, sources close to the case confirmed to AFP. Since January 20, 2021, the Nice public prosecutor's office has been responsible for an
"investigation likely to implicate Hélène Gerhards"
, the Aix-en-Provence general public prosecutor's office told AFP in January 2023. This preliminary investigation is an incident of a judicial investigation by the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Marseille on the Corsican criminal gang of Petit Bar and was entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF), sources close to the matter told AFP.
The magistrate's home in Agen as well as her villa in Pietrosella (South Corsica) were searched in December 2022, AFP learned from sources close to the case. This magistrate was
“discharged from the presidency of the Assize Court of Lot-et-Garonne until further notice, by mutual agreement with the president of the court of appeal”
, following searches of her home in Agen and his villa in Pietrosella in December 2022, according to other sources close to the matter. A measure still in progress, said a judicial source.
Suspected links with banditry
The investigation concerns in particular the suspected links of this magistrate, stationed in Corsica between 2010 and 2016, with an alleged member of island banditry, Johann Carta, around the construction, renovation and rental of the villa of the judge in Pietrosella, on the Gulf of Ajaccio, now sold, judicial sources close to the case told AFP. Johann Carta, former president of Gazelec Ajaccio (GFCA), a football club placed in compulsory liquidation in January 2023, was notably indicted and imprisoned at the end of November 2022 for
“extortion”
,
“fraud”
,
“organized gang money laundering”
and
“criminal association”
by an investigating judge from the Marseille JIRS as part of a financial investigation into his club.
He was also indicted in December 2023 in an investigation opened for
“fraud, extortion and organized money laundering”
by the same JIRS of Marseille. Johann Carta is also at the heart of a preliminary investigation opened in September 2022 by the Ajaccio public prosecutor's office for
"pressure or threats towards members of a jurisdiction"
, after the discovery, in his phone, of photos of the list of jurors of an assize trial for assassination, in March 2021 in Ajaccio. This trial ended in a general acquittal.
When she was an investigating judge in Ajaccio, Hélène Gerhards received death threats at her home in February 2016, which led the Ajaccio public prosecutor's office to place her under police protection and open an investigation. She was then appointed vice-prosecutor in Toulouse in August 2016 then at the Agen Court of Appeal in August 2021. Before that, in 2010, this magistrate, then a young investigating judge at the Albertville court (Savoie) , was at the heart of a documentary on the investigation she carried out into dioxin pollution from an incinerator.