The mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco, sentenced Friday in Marseille to a three-year suspended prison sentence and five years of ineligibility with immediate effect for concealment of embezzlement of public funds, appealed this decision, his lawyer said on Tuesday. AFP.
“Of course, we are appealing the decision so that a new trial is organized as quickly as possible elsewhere,” said Me Thierry Fradet to AFP, confirming information from BFM Var.
“Beyond his mandates, Hubert Falco asked me to defend his honor, which he values ??more than anything,” said his lawyer, before adding that by appealing, his client “is presumed innocent”. “But for all that he loses the right to exercise his mandates”, consequence of his condemnation to a sentence of ineligibility with provisional execution by the criminal court of Marseille on Friday.
The provisional execution of a penalty of ineligibility means that the penalty is immediately applicable, even in the event of an appeal by the defendant.
Justice reproached the 75-year-old mayor of Toulon, who is also president of the Toulon metropolis, for having continued to have lunch for free for years in the cafeteria of the Departmental Council, when he was no longer president. for more than ten years, and to have benefited from meals on wheels and dry-cleaning expenses, also paid for by public funds from this community.
By the same token, the elected official “totally flouted” his “duty to set an example”, had estimated the president of the Marseille criminal court Céline Ballerini when delivering her judgment.
The conviction of the strong man from Var, a former member of the Les Républicains party now rallied to Emmanuel Macron, constitutes a real earthquake for Toulon where he had been re-elected three times in the first round and where he presented himself as a bulwark at the National Rally , from whom he had taken over the city in 2001.
“In the event of acquittal or absence of an additional sentence of ineligibility” in second instance, “the elected official recovers his mandates as of right”, i.e. in this case those of “municipal councilor and metropolitan councillor”, added Mr. Fradet, before concluding that these were the “issues of the future judicial meeting”.
04/18/2023 20:20:18 – Marseille (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP