Bernard Perrut, former LR deputy, sentenced to at least one 12 months in jail for embezzlement of mandate charges | EUROtoday

Political determine from Beaujolais, former MP Bernard Perrut (Les Républicains, LR), was sentenced, Monday May 13 in Paris, to at least one 12 months in jail, suspended. The court docket discovered him responsible of embezzlement of public funds by misuse of his compensation representing mandate bills (IRFM), for an quantity of roughly 87,500 euros, and of breaches of his reporting obligations vis-à-vis the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP), regarding specifically the worth of its property and life insurance coverage contracts.

The Paris legal court docket additionally sentenced him to a superb of 60,000 euros, in addition to a five-year ineligibility sentence. However, he made it identified that Mr. Perrut, who continues to be LR regional advisor in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, was not obliged to depart his present mandate.

During the trial in February, the consultant of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) requested 4 months of suspended imprisonment, a superb of 80,000 euros and three years of ineligibility in opposition to the 67-year-old elected official.

Actions of a “voluntary nature”

While Mr. Perrut had claimed through the listening to to be “a little bit messy” and having acted by ” ease “ to handle its prices, the court docket thought-about that these breaches had a “voluntary character”.

Between 2018 and 2019, the HATVP transmitted to the PNF round fifteen studies regarding the use by a number of parliamentarians, from all sides, of their IRFM. In the quantity of 5,840 euros gross month-to-month, this “aimed to meet the various expenses linked to the exercise of their mandate [qui n’étaient pas] directly supported or reimbursed by the Assembly ».

Among these reports is the one concerning Bernard Perrut, who was deputy of the 9^e Rhône constituency from 1997 to 2022 and mayor of Villefranche-sur-Saône between 2008 and 2017. The acts for which he was convicted were committed between March 2015 and June 2017, before, therefore, the replacement of the IRFM by the advance of mandate fees (AFM), in January 2018.