The deputy Liot of Lozère Pierre Morel-À-L’Huissier is targeted Thursday by searches as part of an investigation opened in particular for embezzlement of public funds after a complaint from Anticor, indicated the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF), confirming information from Mediapart.
These searches are underway in Mende, in particular at the home of the deputy, said this source.
An investigation was opened in November 2022 for embezzlement of public funds, breach of trust and concealment of breach of trust, and entrusted to the Economic Crime Suppression Brigade (BRDE).
The Anticor association had filed a complaint on September 12 against the elected official, who allegedly obtained the reimbursement of fictitious mileage expenses from false supporting documents or through his parliamentary assistants.
Nicknamed “The White Knight of the National Assembly”, Mr. Morel-À-L’Huissier, who has always contested any illegal practice, denounced to AFP a “relentlessness” against him.
Deputy of this rural department since 2002, he was general councilor between 1998 and 2015.
To support its complaint, the association relied in particular on articles and testimonials published among others in Mediapart and Midi-libre.
Between October 2019 and June 2022, Mediapart reported that for several years Mr. Morel-À-L’Huissier had obtained the reimbursement of fictitious mileage expenses according to two methods.
On the one hand, the deputy asked his parliamentary assistants to ask the National Assembly to reimburse fictitious mileage expenses and then to pay him the amount of the payments in cash.
On the other hand, he obtained from the general council the reimbursement of business trips based on false supporting documents.
Anticor also quoted the testimony in Midi-libre of a former collaborator on this practice. “I am not the only one of his employees to have had to do this. (…) For me, it was something anchored, everyone, including his employees, was aware”, affirmed this former assistant parliamentary.
Mediapart had also discovered that the accounting firm responsible for verifying the professional expenses of the Lozère deputy was employing his deputy. And that the clerk of the notarial office who validated his fees in 2015 was one of his part-time collaborators.
The elected official would also have used the remainder of 30,000 euros from the envelope allocated to the deputies to remunerate their collaborators, in order to hire his former wife, instead of donating it to the National Assembly.
“The capture of public funds for personal purposes constitutes a serious breach of probity” and “contributes to damaging the bond of trust which should exist, in a representative democracy, between citizens and their political and administrative representatives”, regrets in a Anticor press release.
04/20/2023 20:15:44 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
