Return to prison or new run?
Marco Mouly, nicknamed “the king of scams” since he was the subject of a Netflix series of that name, returned to his comments reported by Mediapart on Friday.
“I will never return to prison”, it will be “on the run, the return”, he declared to the investigative newspaper, after the announcement of the partial revocation of a probationary suspended sentence and his return to prison for 18 months.
In a video broadcast Friday evening on the C8 show Touche pas à mon poste (TPMP), Marco Mouly, however, returned to his statements.
“It's false,” he says from what appears to be a clothing store, “I believe in justice, because this case is worthless.
» “I'm really upset about going back to prison, I really don't want to go,” he adds.
“How hard is it…”
Marco Mouly reacts to his new conviction in a video broadcast in #TPMP!
pic.twitter.com/h2o7U9iOJ7
— TPMP (@TPMP) March 8, 2024
What matter is this?
The case on the table currently has nothing to do with the famous carbon tax scam, of which Marco Mouly is one of the protagonists, a case of VAT fraud, to the detriment of the State of Denmark, dating back to the years 1998 and 1999. In this case, the 58-year-old man was sentenced in 2019 to three years in prison, with a probationary suspension established over a period of three years.
A probationary suspension allows the convicted person not to serve the prison sentence, if they respect certain obligations provided for in the judgment.
In the case of Marco Mouly, the sentencing judge ruled on Friday that several obligations set for him had not been respected and therefore partially revoked the probationary suspension, thus condemning him to a return to prison for 18 months .
Why this incarceration?
Marco Mouly was notably subject to a work obligation, psychological monitoring and the obligation to reimburse a fine of 15,000 euros.
But the person concerned held “a fictitious job” as a community manager, according to the judge, and “he provided the justice system with false pay slips, against the backdrop of a well-oiled organization,” specifies the court decision, consulted by Mediapart and the AFP.
At the same time, Marco Mouly indicated, during an audition, that he was working on a second book and had landed a leading role in a film which should be shot soon.
The fifty-year-old also did not pay his fine in full, the judge noting that 11,569 euros out of the 15,000 had not been paid.
While at the same time, he regularly appears on social networks aboard luxury cars.
Also read: Why you shouldn't miss “D'Argent et de sang”, this human and ecological tragedy on Canal +
However, the king of the scam was not yet behind bars on Friday evening.
His lawyer, Me Philippe Ohayon, told AFP that he had appealed this decision, which he said was “unfair, illegal and unjust”.
“Could the prosecution have the elegance to let the court of appeal have the last word in this matter, rather than creating a climate of terror for the payment of a fine?
", did he declare.
Towards a run?
In view of Marco Mouly's contradictory statements, it is difficult to answer this question.
Speaking to Mediapart on Friday, he seemed decided to leave.
“I’m already in the car,” he says.
But on “TPMP”, the man denied it, instead emphasizing the harshness of having to return to prison.
“I’m not smiling, I took 18 months this morning,” he laments in the show, “It’s hard.”
Julie Madar, author of a biography dedicated to him - ironically called "La Cavale
"
- assured from the set of "TPMP", just after the broadcast of Marco Mouly's video, that the fifty-year-old is "very anxious" and “doesn’t want to go back at all.”
For her, her statements to Mediapart were more of an unconsidered reaction, following the announcement of her return to prison, than of a real desire to flee.
A run in 2016
However, this would not be the first time that Marco Mouly found himself on the run.
In 2016, he fled after being sentenced to eight years in prison for the carbon tax scam, also nicknamed “The heist of the century
”
.
Marco Mouly was finally arrested in Switzerland, after five months on the run.
The final judgment in this case dates back to the end of June 2017. Marco Mouly, as well as his accomplice Arnaud Mimran, were sentenced on appeal to eight years of imprisonment and a fine of one million euros.
With the other main defendants in the case, they were ordered to pay 283 million euros in damages to the State.
Their scam was adapted for the screen in the series “D'argent et de sang”, broadcast on Canal + which immerses the viewer in one of the biggest financial scams of the century, having cost more than 1.6 billion dinars. euros to the French State.