UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING – What is the case of sextape blackmail at the town hall of Saint-Étienne? – BFM TV

The mayor of the city, Gaël Perdriau, his chief of staff and a deputy blackmailed the first deputy Gilles Artigues, after he was filmed without his knowledge with an escort in 2014, as revealed by Médiapart.Gaël Perdriau , the mayor of Saint-Étienne, was heard on Tuesday under police custody for his involvement in the case of sextape blackmail against his former first deputy Gilles Artigues (UDI). At the same time, Les Républicains announced that the city councilor had been expelled from the party. A complaint for aggravated blackmail had been filed against him concerning the filming and use of a sexual video recorded in 2014 while Gilles Artigues, a 57-year-old father known for his Catholic commitment, was being massaged by an escort in a hotel room in Paris. What was the context at the time? In 2014, the current mayor LR of Saint- Étienne, Gaël Perdriau, is newly elected. His first deputy, but also a rival in the Saint-Etienne microcosm, is called Gilles Artigues. The mayor wants to control him politically and in particular to dissuade him from possible dissidence. the ideas flowed on how to smash Gilles Artigues, how to hold him: that is to say either to kill him politically, or to control him”, tells France Inter Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, the companion of Samy Kefi-Jérôme at the time. It is the latter who is at the heart of the revelations in this case of sextape blackmail at the town hall of Saint-Étienne. How was the ambush set up? Put in the loop, Gilles Rossary-Lenglet imagines a plan, sponsored by “Gaël Perdriau and his chief of staff, Pierre Gauttieri”, which would allow the mayor to “hold” his rival. “I know how to do this kind of trickery, he assumes with the Parisian. I went to the town hall and I immediately proposed to go on a sex matter”.Gilles A rtigues based his political career on traditional and conservative values. The decision is made to trap him in the company of an escort in a hotel room. “While you say bad things about homos and we see you fooling around with a gay escort, it goes without saying that there you have a political death sentence on the person”, explains Gilles Rossary-Lenglet. being provided with a go-Pro camera by a secretary of the town hall of Saint-Étienne. Then, Samy Kefi-Jérôme “paid” the escort and “brought Gilles Artigues into the room”. Gilles Rossary-Lenglet says he was paid 50,000 euros by the town hall to set up the trap and make the video. · When did the sextape blackmail begin? The rest only comes 18 months later. At the end of 2016, Samy Kefy-Jérôme summons Gilles Artigues to his home and shows him part of the video. It is a 2-minute montage mixing images captured in the hotel room with biographical elements of Gilles Artigues, in particular on his Catholic commitments. It’s called “In bed with Gilles Artigues” and ends with this phrase: “We’re going to take a break… Following the next episode…” “From that moment on, he was told that if he did not do what was asked of him, the video would be published”, explains on France Bleu Me André Buffard, the victim’s lawyer. How is the mayor involved? Gilles Artigues says he alerted Mayor Gaël Perdriau a few days after this meeting, while the city councilor denied having participated in this plot or even having been aware of the existence of the video. Despite this, the blackmail does not stop. In July 2017, after expressing a minor disagreement on Gaël Perdriau’s policy in a meeting, Gilles Artigues is told by the mayor, when the room is empty, that he must not start again, otherwise the images could come out publicly, he told in the context of the judicial inquiry. From there, Gilles Artigues decides to record the threats. The extracts broadcast by Médiapart overwhelm the mayor. In the presence of the latter, Pierre Gauttieri, the chief of staff, threatens Gilles Artigues to spread the video to the parents of students in the establishments where his children are educated, adding: “If the fact that I go to jail makes you fall because you pass for an old pedal on the return, I have no problem “.”There are other ways of doing it, we are not obliged to broadcast publicly”, evoking a broadcast “in small circles, with parsimony”, then completes Gaël Perdriau. “Once it’s on the networks, it’s more blackmail. It’s an execution”, warns the city councilor. it took so long to be revealed? Eight years separate the beginning of a blackmail and the filing of a complaint. For Me André Buffard, Gilles Artigues’ lawyer, his client “was under the influence”. “He could not speak, he dared not speak, he had no chance of being believed (…). It was from the moment he understood the extent of the machination of which he was the victim and that it could be demonstrated that he agreed to explain himself”, he adds to BFMTV. Gilles Artigues confides that he thought of putting an end to his life, to put an end to the harassment suffered. After the revelations of Médiapart, on August 26, he finally decided to file a complaint for “ambush in an organized gang”. privacy, aggravated blackmail, embezzlement of public property by a person in charge of a public function, breach of trust and concealment of these offenses “in the context of this case. What will happen next? This Tuesday morning, Gaël Perdriau was expelled from the Republicans. In the midst of the race for the succession of the presidency of the LRs, the candidates to take over the party all called for his departure. Summoned by the judicial police of Lyon a little earlier in the morning, the city councilor was also auditioned in police custody for a few hours, like four other people involved in the case, including Gilles Rossary-Lenglet and Samy Kéfi-Jerôme. The investigation for “invasion of privacy, aggravated blackmail, embezzlement of public property by a person in charge of a public function, breach of trust and concealment of these offenses” is continuing.