"Relieved", cowardly MJ, Jiresse Masciola of his real name.
A few tens of minutes before speaking at the end of the hearing this Friday, January 15 in the evening, this elegant young man of 23 years, disc jockey forced to inactivity, had heard the prosecutor of the judicial court of Tours request a suspended prison sentence against him for the organization of a clandestine party in a cellar of Montlouis-sur-Loire (Indre-et-Loire), on December 12, in full confinement linked to the health crisis of Covid- 19.
He gets away with 210 hours of community service and a fine of 150 euros.
Far from the indictments and prison sentences that threaten the supposed organizers of the Breton rave party of December 31.
His accomplice, Claire Béguin, was to celebrate her 24th birthday that night with some friends.
"Finally, I celebrated him in custody for 48 hours," recalled the dapper young woman, suddenly contrite.
She receives 140 hours of community service.
"If it is in nursing home or in a health service, as requested by the president, I will go, that will not pose any problem to me", she assures, as if to remove the suspicion of total unconsciousness which has walked through the courtroom.
At 100, then 150, in 120m2
Both are therefore condemned for having organized a party, baptized "the luxuriant", as indicated in the flyer that MJ sent on Snapchat and Instagram to some friends and close customers.
"Except that these friends have passed on to other friends, and the party has escaped you", underlined Christophe Régnard, president of the tribunal.
That evening, while Claire and MJ were waiting for a few dozen people, "eighty at most," MJ admitted, they found themselves a hundred, then a hundred and fifty, massed in the 120 square meters of a troglodyte cellar. as there are so many in the slopes along the Loire.
The young DJ, who lives off performances in nightclubs and evenings in Touraine, has no income.
With a dependent son, a rent to pay, he took the responsibility of organizing this evening, and to draw some subsidies.
Customers had to pay: 10 euros for girls, 30 for men.
Except for the ten friends of Claire, since it was she who found the room.
"We were quickly overwhelmed"
"We managed to get the first 20 to pay, then we were quickly overwhelmed," admits MJ.
It is precisely one of their friends, impressed by the influx of young revelers, who warned the firefighters, claiming to be injured.
"In fact, he was not injured at all, maybe a little alcoholic, but he mostly panicked," said the president.
In the wake of the firefighters, the gendarmes arrived that night, witnessing an insane scene: 150 young people gathered in 120 square meters, accessible by a single door, and provided with a single window, "in total violation of sanitary rules : without masks, without hydroalcoholic gel, without distancing, ”listed Delphine Amacher, deputy prosecutor.
During a long audience, the president calls out to the DJ and main organizer: "A witness affirms that you would have announced at the microphone:
Here are the cops, run and hide in the woods!"
MJ formally denies: "There is no wood near the cellar".
With the Covid, endangering the lives of others?
My Abed Bendjador and Boris Labbé pleaded leniency towards these two young adults, "who simply sought to live, to recreate social ties in a difficult period".
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MJ, unknown to justice before, did not escape when the flashing lights replaced his light shows, underlines Me Labbé: "He gave his number straight away, he did not lie, he stood by available to investigators ”.
Claire, a bit carefree, arrived at the summons of the gendarmes in high heels and dress.
"She was not aware of having violated the law," defends Me Bendjador.
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If the hearing lasted, it is because it was necessary to decide a last sensitive point, the endangering of the life of others.
Does throwing a party in times of Covid-19 put the lives of others in danger?
"The danger must be serious and imminent", pleads Me Labbé.
"And that it be immediate," adds Me Bendjador.
"Is the coronavirus, which causes lethality of 0.12% of the population, a serious, imminent and immediate danger?
», He asks.
By adopting a position of lenient condemnation, the Court of Tours refrained from responding.