It is far from the courtrooms of the courts that Annick Corona now operates. The magistrate, who notably judged the high-profile Air Cocaine case on appeal in June 2021, published her autobiography The hearing is open: bring in the judge published by Le Lys Bleu. “I wrote this book to convey my professional but also personal experience”, she explains to us straight away. With this work, she wants to prove that it is possible to build a career even “without having all the assets” at birth.
“I have an atypical background”
Because Annick Corona, a former investigating judge, does not come from a wealthy social background. His alcoholic father abuses the whole family. His parents do not have a significant income and do not read. The siblings do not visit any museums or watch any films at the cinema. “I have an atypical background because I did not grow up in a conducive environment” to success, agrees the retired president of the assize court. “Through this book, I want to prove that with will, we can achieve it. I want to give hope. I was lucky to have the support of my mother and my husband. My mother gave me everything she could. »
If Annick Corona managed to escape from this environment, it is therefore in particular thanks to her ” Mom “. With her mother and sister, she fled after yet another violent episode within the home. “We are very united. I wanted to protect her because I quite often witnessed the scenes of violence she suffered. She also wanted to protect me because I was also a victim”she tells us.
“I wanted to be a social worker”
At school, Annick Corona works hard and brings home good grades for her loving mother. But she can’t break away from this “feeling of inferiority” which sticks to his skin. “I always saw myself as the poor little girl”, she concedes. Terrified at the idea of failing the baccalaureate, she was no longer able to eat two days before the first test. It is therefore on an empty stomach that she begins the examination. “I remember going to the bathroom to throw up bile”, she confides. She failed the baccalaureate and passed it the following year, without being able to choose her professional path.
Indeed, law is not a vocation for Annick Corona. She hadn’t imagined herself in a courtroom trying to do justice. “I wanted to be a social worker, I wanted to help others”, she reveals. She even took tests to practice this profession but failed. “And so much the better”she bursts out laughing today when she thinks about it. “I applied to law school without much conviction. But I found my vocation during my first internship with a children’s judge. »
A mafioso wants him dead
If Annick Corona has had a great career, she does not hide in her autobiography that she was invaded on several occasions by an immense “frustration” when she failed to “put the bad guys out of society”. For her, managing this feeling was ” very difficult “ because she considered herself “the last bastion of the world’s misfortune”.
In his work spotted by Progress , Annick Corona also evokes the fear of dying because of her job. In May 2006, while working at the interregional jurisdiction specializing in the fight against crime and delinquency in Lyon, she learned that a Romanian mafioso had placed a €200,000 contract on her head. “In the courtyard of a remand center, a man, who had confessed to his role in an organized bank card scam, heard about this contract”, she explains to us. Warned “by a colleague”she remembered the “pellet impacts on headlights” of her car which she had seen some time before. “But, I hadn’t really paid attention to it. »
Placed under police protection
The magistrate and her children were immediately placed under police protection for a year. “My children went to school escorted. The police accompanied me between my home and my place of work”she remembers, still marked by this period which ended with the identification of the mafioso, pimp and crook. “Even today, when I drive alone, I look in my mirrors to check if I am not being followed”affirms Annick Corona.
With her work, which allowed her to introspect on her life, the former judge now intends to testify to law school students to assure them that everything is possible despite their social environment. She also plans to meet high school and college students to prevent juvenile delinquency.
