The request for the release of the mayor of Agde, Gilles d’Ettore (LR), was rejected by the investigating chamber of the Montpellier Court of Appeal. The attorney general opposed this request. Gilles d’Ettore was indicted in particular for illegal taking of interests and corruption. He was remanded in custody on March 21.
“It’s about keeping a 55-year-old man in prison, never convicted, father of a family, mayor of a town for 23 years, president of an urban area,” regrets his lawyer, Jean-Marc Darrigade. He “answered all the questions put to him during the seven hearings of a grueling 48-hour period in police custody”.
Stormy municipal council in his absence
The mayor is suspected of having acted to favor the designs of a 44-year-old woman who presents herself as a clairvoyant, medium and healer. By modifying her voice, she would have succeeded in placing loved ones under influence, in order to make them believe that they were “in conversation with a supernatural being coming from beyond”, according to the public prosecutor of Béziers, Raphaël Balland.
Gilles d’Ettore concedes, “under the influence of this woman”, that he may have committed some “failures”. But he “disputes” that “hundreds of thousands of euros of public money were embezzled”, specifies his lawyer. He still holds his position as chief magistrate in the Hérault seaside resort, despite a very agitated municipal council in his absence on Thursday.