The director and the president of this Béarnaise association were tried on Monday in the court of Pau. They were appearing in an embezzlement case. It was a reintegration association which was based in Serres-Castet and which has since been placed in compulsory liquidation. The woman was prosecuted for having forged checks, having paid advances on wages without having reimbursed them and for having participated in the bankruptcy of the association between 2002 and 2020.
The former president of the association was prosecuted for bankruptcy, for having increased the association’s debts between 2012 and 2020, which amounted to €258,000. The president of the association was released. As for the director, she was sentenced to a suspended sentence of one and a half years in prison, she has an obligation to compensate, a ban on managing for 10 years and a ban on any accounting activity for 5 years.
Regular payments, a classic lifestyle
On the stand, the defendant maintained that he knew nothing; she explained that she acted for financial reasons. For more than 15 years, this woman regularly made transfers to her account, in all she took €160,000: “My husband had nothing left, no more work, no more unemployment, there was only my salary“. Salary advances for her, almost never reimbursed, but also for other employees: the damage is estimated at €17,000. Her lawyer Me Thierry Sagardoytho has pleaded prescription because there was no concealment and he insisted that his client “did not clearly handle public money“. A part has been prescribed for the latter.
Many alerts
Several experts have reported the abuse, to no avail. Next to the defendant, the former president plays the ignorant: “I can’t remember dates or numbers“.”Not very practical in a financial file” notes the president of the court of Pau who still questions “SAccording to you there was not something to do?“The man replies: “I am a peasant, for me it is impossible to fire someone […]. She had agreed to take out a loan to repay the moneyThe defendant has however experience of the associative world since he has held the position of president of the Fishing Federation in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Up to €22,000 in salary advances
But the prefecture of Pyrénées-Atlantiques believes that it has been a victim in this case, insofar as subsidies were paid to the association each year. “It’s our tax money said Eddie Bouttera, secretary general of the prefecture. With this money, we could have inserted a lot of people, I have the feeling of having been manipulated. He was asked to fire madam but he refused.” In this case, the association received an average of €330,000 per year.