The LR councilor of the commune was also placed under judicial supervision on June 26. Sophia M. is now prohibited from practicing any healing or alternative medicine activity.
After the mayor of the commune Gilles d’Etorre on Wednesday, it is the turn of Sophia M. to be released under conditions, this Friday, we learned Le Figaro of the Béziers prosecutor, Raphaël Balland. The judge of liberty and detention ruled on the placement under judicial supervision of the main accused in this vast fraud case in Agde, thus ending her pretrial detention. The Agathoise is now prohibited from going to the department of Hérault where she lived until now with her family, and will have to “establish residence in Strasbourg”says Raphaël Balland.
Above all, the conditions of Sophia M.’s judicial review provide “the ban on exercising the activities of clairvoyant, medium, healer, hypnotherapist, magnetizer, purifier, energetician, dowser, personal development coach, masseuse and more generally any activity linked to esotericism as well as alternative or alternative medicine »lists the representative of the public prosecutor in a press release this Friday afternoon.
The judge’s decision comes more than three months after the double indictment of the Les Républicains councilor and his sulphurous “medium” – one for “illegal taking of interests and corruption”, the other for “concealment of embezzlement”, “concealment of corruption” and “concealed work” – which sounded like the first clap of thunder in a resounding case of embezzlement of public funds, involving at least five other people.
Hoarsely
Justice accuses this mother of six of having used her ventriloquist talent to manipulate one of her clients, the mayor LR of the town, thanks to which she obtained “numerous largesse and benefits”financed by the city’s coffers. Using her hoarse artificial voice, the “clairvoyant” who claimed to communicate with the deceased of the mayor had thus seen her luxurious wedding financed the previous year, in a castle in the Hérault hinterland, but also the expensive work in her house of a veranda and a new kitchen. Her six children were also allegedly taken care of by city hall drivers to get to school and her husband employed as a technical director in the city. During her police custody, the woman who, with a loyal clientele, had built up an astonishing reputation in the region, had admitted to having used a stratagem to dupe her interlocutors during the sessions.
While the investigation is expected to last for many more months, Gilles d’Ettore had already announced his resignation from his position as mayor, from his cell last April. At the same time, a cascade of indictments extended the case to other protagonists. Sophia M.’s husband was thus indicted and left at liberty, as were two regional executives of the BTP Eiffage group, suspected of having participated in the secret financing of work carried out at the home, who were indicted at the end of March for “breach of trust”, “forgery and use of forgery”.
Cascade of indictments
At the end of May, a 63-year-old real estate developer was also indicted for “misuse of corporate assets and breach of trust to the detriment of his companies” and for “active corruption with the mayor of Agde”. The businessman is suspected of having financed through his companies the luxurious cuisine of the “clairvoyant”, part of the buffet for her wedding as well as plane tickets to Paris. All for an amount of 17,000 euros.
Finally, the clairvoyant’s daughter, aged 20, and a friend of the latter, aged 42, were indicted for “concealment of illegal taking of interests”. Just like Sophia M.’s husband, the courts accuse them of having been employed for several months by the town hall of Agde, under an apprenticeship contract for one, and as manager of the toll barrier of the naturist village of the commune for the other.
