Did a judicial administrator try, with two relatives of the Marseille milieu, to extort a million euros from Jean-Pierre Bernès, ex-manager of Olympique de Marseille who became an agent for football players? The Marseille Criminal Court began to answer this question on Monday.
In 2014, Me Michel Gillibert was responsible for relaunching the procedure aimed at having Jean-Pierre Bernès pay 11 million euros. This sum corresponded to the damages to which this former director general of OM (1988-1993) and other leaders – but not its former president Bernard Tapie – had been condemned, in December 1998, in a file of misuse of corporate assets to the detriment of the Marseille club.
For seventeen years, the predecessors of Michel Gillibert had come up against the obstinate refusal of Jean-Pierre Bernès to pay the least penny. To achieve the “to rake”, according to his expression, the lawyer had tried a circuitous route, calling on one of his friends, Simon Fedon, to approach Jean-Pierre Bernès. Associated with Richard Laaban, also considered to be close to the Marseille environment and convicted on several occasions, their role was to convince the players’ agent to accept a transaction.
“They told me that it was in my interest to go very far”
According to the prosecution, Jean-Pierre Bernès had been offered to compromise up to two million euros to officially settle his civil debt, for a kickback of one million euros. During the sound system of an appointment in a large hotel in Marseille, Simon Fedon, now deceased, evoked the breakdown of this bakchich: 600,000 euros for Me Gillibert and 400,000 euros for his henchmen.
The former judicial administrator, 70, now retired, disputes the slightest arrangement, regretting “having called on nickel-plated Feet in this case”. He is being prosecuted for complicity in attempted extortion, criminal conspiracy and violation of professional secrecy.
“I never asked, or even talked about money with Jean-Pierre Bernès”, defended himself on Monday Richard Laaban, 78, after presenting himself as a simple intermediary, a small postman: “I don’t I never scared Mr. Bernès, I never saw that he was worried about me, ”insisted the ex-brasserie and nightclub boss then converted to manager of the OM shop and player agent.
A climate of pressure
Jean-Pierre Bernès, whom the court will hear on Tuesday, certainly never mentioned death threats, but a heavy climate of pressure: “They told me that it was in my interest to go very far if I did not pay”, he told investigators.
During a one-on-one with Me Gillibert, on April 20, 2015, Jean-Pierre Bernès had discreetly recorded his interlocutor: “With these people, it’s always scary, I don’t want to take a bullet in the head”, had dropped this one, sibylline.
A few weeks later, Michel Gillibert had put this procedure back on the traditional paths, before finally being caught up in the investigation. Three years later, in June 2018, it was another judicial administrator who would reach a memorandum of understanding, Jean-Pierre Bernès finally committing to pay 2.3 million euros to the ad hoc agent. The trial is due to end on Wednesday.