There was indeed deception on the goods. The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal of the Breton fruit and vegetable wholesaler Chéritel, who challenged his conviction for “deception” after selling foreign tomatoes stamped “origin France”, in a judgment delivered on Tuesday. “After examining both the admissibility of the appeals and the procedural documents, the Court of Cassation finds that there is, in this case, no means of such a nature as to allow the appeals to be admitted”, she noted. declared.
In November 2019, the Saint-Brieuc criminal court sentenced Jean Chéritel to a three-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 20,000 euros for “deception about the French or foreign origin of a product”.
Too harsh a judgment according to the wholesaler
His eponymous company, based near Guingamp (Côtes-d’Armor), had been sentenced to a fine of 70,000 euros and a confiscation of 200,000 euros from its accounts.
Jean Chéritel had appealed, indicating that he “did not understand the judgment”, too severe according to him “compared to similar convictions of colleagues”. The sentences had been confirmed by the Rennes Court of Appeal in October 2021.