Three managers of analysis laboratories sentenced in Nice for false negative tests

Three heads of analysis laboratories on the Côte d’Azur, a doctor and two pharmacists, were sentenced on Monday to suspended sentences of eight to eighteen months in prison for having issued at least 497 false negative tests for the virus. of Covid-19 in 2020. “The samples were well taken but they were not the subject of any analysis”, explained the Nice prosecutor’s office to 20 minuteswhich disclosed the case last year.

The Nice Criminal Court went further than the requisitions, between five and twelve months of suspended imprisonment, taken during the hearing on December 9. The three men, aged 45 for two of them and 75 for the last, at the head of pharmacies in the Eurofins Labazur iLab network in Nice, Peymeinade (Alpes-Maritimes) and Montauroux (Var) have been recognized guilty of “endangering the life of others” and “establishment of inaccurate attestation or certificate”. They were acquitted of the fraud against the Primary Health Insurance Fund.

“A very important pressure”

An investigation had begun after a denunciation to customs and the investigators had discovered 497 fraudulent seizures of negative tests. The three respondents then explained that they had had to deal with a “significant flood of screenings”. “At the time, the laboratories were in the context of an unprecedented health crisis. It was the second wave. It was incredible and violent, with very significant pressure for these professionals, “explained the lawyer of a defendant to 20 minutes.

The people concerned by these false tests had “been contacted individually at the time according to a protocol established in consultation with the Regional Health Agency [ARS] “, explained the management of Eurofins, after the revelation of the case. The company specified “strongly condemn individual criminal actions”.

The main defendant, a biologist pharmacist, was given an eighteen-month suspended prison sentence, a fine of 15,000 euros and a ban on exercising his professional activity for three years. His father, also a biologist pharmacist, received an eight-month suspended sentence, a 5,000 euro fine and a one-year professional ban. The third, a biologist, was given a ten-month suspended sentence, a fine of 7,000 euros and a one-year professional ban.

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