Two weeks after his conviction in the "wiretapping affair", Nicolas Sarkozy, who was not present in court this Wednesday at midday, was again faced with justice, this time in the context of the Bygmalion case.
A reunion cut short, since the trial targeting the excessive spending of his 2012 presidential campaign has been postponed to May 20.
Jérôme Lavrilleux, at the time deputy director of the campaign, had made a request for referral the day before, because two of his representatives are suffering from Covid-19.
One is even hospitalized.
The lawyers of the 14 defendants in total - former executives of Bygmalion and the UMP, accountants - had joined this request, which the prosecution did not oppose.
The trial, scheduled for a month, could begin in earnest in May.
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Bygmalion trial: "I am ready to assume", assures Jérôme Lavrilleux
"It's a blow with a club, I haven't slept for three days", confided to the Parisian Jérôme Lavrilleux, at the origin of the request for dismissal.
“This is a legitimate reason for postponement,” explained the lawyer for one of the defendants.
Christian Saint-Palais is hospitalized.
He has been defending Jérôme Lavrilleux since the start of the case, in 2014. However, the latter, who occupies a central position in this case, must be able to be defended.
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On March 1, Nicolas Sarkozy became the first ex-president of the Fifth Republic to be sentenced to three years' imprisonment, one of which was firm, for corruption and influence peddling.
In the Bygmalion case, a case which had led to chain explosions on the right as the revelations progressed, he faces a year of imprisonment and a fine of 3,750 euros for “illegal financing of the electoral campaign”.
Even if he "will not shy away", Nicolas Sarkozy has let it be known that he will only attend hearings concerning him.
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Unlike his co-defendants dismissed in particular for fraud or complicity, he is not blamed for the system of false invoices, imagined to hide the excessive expenses of his campaign, which Jérôme Lavrilleux revealed in a surprising televised confession in 2014. But, according to the prosecution, the former head of state let spending slip despite several clear alerts on the risk of exceeding the ceiling.
And he "undoubtedly" benefited from the fraud which allowed him to have "means far superior" to what the law allowed: at least 42.8 million in total, almost double the legal ceiling at the time. .
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