the mayor of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau, indicted

The mayor of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau, was indicted on Thursday April 6 at the end of his police custody in the context of the intimate video blackmail case targeting his former first deputy, Gilles Artigues, a indicated his lawyer to franceinfo. Gaël Perdriau has been placed under judicial supervision and can continue to exercise his mandate as mayor, said his lawyer because he is indicted only for the facts of “blackmail”. “As regards the facts of embezzlement of public funds by a depositary of public authority”, he was heard as an assisted witness”, explained Thursday April 6 the prosecution, in a press release sent to franceinfo. The mayor of Saint-Étienne wanted to explain himself to the courts, added the defense of Gaël Perdriau who stayed 6 hours in the judge’s office.

>> We summarize the case in which Mayor Gaël Perdriau is involved

In this case, the former chief of staff of the mayor of Saint-Etienne, Pierre Gauttieri, announced that he had been indicted on leaving the Lyon court. “I did not wish to respond to the magistrates”briefly declared Mr. Gautierri to the journalists present, without specifying the heads of his indictment.

This 54-year-old man had been brought before the investigating judges on Thursday morning after having spent forty hours in police custody, in the company of his former boss, the ex-LR Gaël Perdriau, the former municipal deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and the former companion of the latter Gilles Rossary-Lenglet. They are suspected of being involved, at different levels, in sex tape blackmail which lasted for years against Gilles Artigues, the former first deputy mayor of Saint-Etienne. The case was revealed by Mediapart on August 26, 2022.