Indicted for illegal taking of interests and corruption, the former mayor of Agde, Gilles d’Ettore, was released this Wednesday.
The former councilor is suspected of having granted numerous advantages to a woman presenting herself as a clairvoyant, who is still in detention.
New twist in the so-called “psychic ventriloquist” affair. The former mayor of Agde (Hérault), Gilles d’Ettore, who had been incarcerated since March 21 after his indictment for corruption, illegal taking of interests and embezzlement of public funds, was released this Wednesday , announced the Béziers public prosecutor’s office.
The central figure in this affair, a forty-year-old who presents herself as a clairvoyant, medium and ventriloquist “healer”, currently in detention, will be determined on her fate on Friday.
A well-rehearsed ploy
The investigation was initiated in October 2023. The clairvoyant then explained to the investigators that she had succeeded, by modifying her voice so that it appeared “masculine, composed and hoarse”to abuse several of his close friends, including the mayor of Agde, by making them believe that they were “in conversation with a supernatural being from beyond”.
This 44-year-old mother admitted to having benefited, thanks to this scheme, from numerous benefits, in particular the recruitment within the municipality or urban area of five of her relatives, and from gifts offered by entrepreneurs in connection with Gilles d’Ettore, whose responsibility for his sumptuous third marriage last year.
Conditional release
The investigating judges responsible for this case “ordered the release” of the former Hérault councilor, “taking into account in particular (his) resignation from all his elected mandates”, indicated in a press release the prosecutor of Béziers, Raphaël Balland. The prosecution, which had requested his continued detention, did not appeal.
The former mayor has now “the obligation to reside with a friend in Dordogne”. He is further prohibited from “to go to Hérault, to leave the national territory and to come into contact (…) with a long list of persons named by name and, in general, with any person exercising elective mandates or functions “ to the Agde town hall or to the urban community, specifies the prosecution.
For his part, Gilles d’Ettore, who served as mayor of Agde since 2001, claimed to have been “trap”. A request for release at the beginning of April was rejected by the courts. He finally resigned from his position on May 31, after two months of pre-trial detention.
Long investigations
The Béziers prosecutor also requested before the judge of freedoms and detention on Wednesday the release under judicial supervision of the clairvoyant, “on condition in particular of requiring him to reside far from the department”. The decision will be made Friday. According to Raphaël Balland, the investigations should last “many more months”.
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In this case, in addition to the former mayor and the clairvoyant, several people have already been indicted. This is notably the case of a property developer from Hérault, suspected of having financed “the clairvoyant’s equipped kitchen, part of her wedding buffet, and plane tickets to Paris” according to the prosecutor.
The daughter of the forty-year-old, aged 20, and a 42-year-old friend were also indicted for “concealment of illegal taking of interests”, for having been employed for several months by the town hall of Agde, respectively in apprenticeship contract and as “responsible for the toll gate of the naturist village” of the municipality.
