The bigger it is, the more it’s acceptable ? Not for this 35-year-old man, who appears before the Paris Criminal Court for having notably passed himself off as the nephew of Brigitte Macron. He admitted to having created in spring 2018, via the Internet host OVH, a false email address: dircab@presidence-française.fr, and signed his submissions as Pierre-Olivier Costa, chief of staff of Brigitte Macron, or Patrick Strzoda, chief of staff of Emmanuel Macron, who joined as a civil party.
In these emails, he asked for special services, supposedly for the nephew of the First Lady: a VIP welcome in a luxury hotel in Morocco, seats for a Formula 1 grand prix in Melbourne or a Club 2000 card from of Air France. Although most of his attempts were unsuccessful, he was still able to visit a Rohingya refugee camp, meet with the French ambassador to Bangladesh and, a few days later, benefit from an upgrade to the hotel. luxury located in Hong Kong.
The defendant pleaded “mythomania”, explaining difficulties “to stay in his life”. “During my childhood, lying was part of everyday life. I ran away at 17 and I started to invent a life scenario for myself to create a kind of distortion compared to my life before, ”he said. He thus admits to being attracted by “the status, the prestige, the privileges”, but denies having acted “for the money”. Tried for identity theft, attempted fraud, fraud, the man is also a repeat offender since he had been convicted of similar acts in September 2014.
One accomplice and another combine
At his side compared an accomplice who did not necessarily have the same motivations. The role of the young woman? His “address book, which could facilitate the approach”. “I have always presented myself under my real identity. I never thought it was identity theft ”, she defended herself, arguing that for her,“ it was as if someone showed up in a nightclub pretending to be the nephew of Brigitte Macron, it was not serious ”. Instead of going to a nightclub, the defendant actually got luxury clothes, hotel upgrades, or even the loan of a Tesla electric car.
Last string in the bow of the two usurpers, the presentation of the man as an infiltrated journalist, using these false addresses to denounce the “privileges and privileges of a system”. Before the court, he recognized “a deception”.