After three months of pre-trial detention, Sophia Martinez, 44, accused of having manipulated the mayor of Agde to benefit from advantages, will be housed in Strasbourg. Far from his family.
After Gilles d’Ettore, the resigned mayor of Cap-d’Agde (Hérault) who found freedom on Wednesday, Sophia Martinez, his clairvoyant, left the Nîmes remand center on Friday.
And this, by decision of the judge of freedom and detention (JLD) of Béziers while the two judges seized had requested the extension of his detention. This mother of six children, aged 44, was placed under judicial supervision, still indicted for “fraud”, “concealment of embezzlement by a person holding public authority”, “concealment of corruption” and “ hidden work”.
She is completely banned from practicing her profession as a clairvoyant and must be accommodated in Strasbourg, 850 km from Agde. A decision that his lawyer will contest on appeal, he who had presented alternative accommodation in the region.
“He is forbidden from having a family life”
“She is forbidden from playing her role as a mother and from having a family life, her children are here”regrette Me Luc Abratkiewicz.
A medium and healer, she is suspected of having used a stratagem with the mayor of Agde and other interlocutors: by using a hoarse masculine voice on the telephone, she made them believe that she was in contact with a supernatural being of the beyond. Which voice nicknamed “Daddy”, advised them in their lives and also encouraged them to “to take care” of the clairvoyant, including materially…
“Far from white-collar delinquency and millions of euros embezzled”
Taking advantage of the credulity of the mayor of Agde, the clairvoyant was offered a veranda, a terrace, a jacuzzi or even a sumptuous wedding followed by a honeymoon in Tahiti, while benefiting from the mayor’s driver to bring her children at school while several of his relatives, his eldest daughter and his best friend, were hired at town hall.
“But we are far from white-collar crime, with millions of euros embezzled by people who are left under judicial supervision and never incarcerated.”qualifies his lawyer.
“A veranda, a kitchen, a second-hand jacuzzi and trips, yes, it’s too much, but did it justify this pre-trial detention and this punishment?”
Because, according to her defender, the medium lived “a real nightmare” behind the prison walls where “They stuck this image of a malicious clairvoyant on her.”
“Mistaken for a witch” and attacked in prison
With strong media pressure on one side and, on the other, maximum prison pressure. Victim of an assault, the forty-year-old was placed in solitary confinement for a time. Another inmate took her “for a witch” and attacked her physically.
However, two lawyers tell us that their clients, in prison, were able to consult and benefit from the supposed divinatory gifts of the clairvoyant, while she does not have the right to practice. Nonsense for Me Abratkiewicz who claims that these “fake” testimonies are only there to hope to win sentence reductions.
“Exhibited like a freak show” by the former mayor
“Above all, she was separated and deprived of her children for more than three months, even though she admitted and assumed everything from the beginning, in police custody and then before the two judges who heard her in June.”
Before the JLD, she explained “having taken a blow to the head from a club”suddenly losing his entire lifestyle.
Sophia Martinez, her lawyer recalls, found herself “in a world of glitter and money when she met Gilles d’Ettore, she was covered in gifts, she took advantage of it, she skidded.”
But, she also told the judges, the former mayor “exhibited like a fairground beast”so convinced of his gifts of mediumship.
“She found the company of an imaginary friend, “Papa”
We must also go back to her childhood to better understand the ventriloquist’s winding journey. She grew up in Strasbourg and was placed at a very young age: “She was not born under a lucky star, with a mother who had serious psychological problems and a deviant father. She was mistreated and lived in darkness for several years.”rappelle Me Abratkiewicz.
The origin of the voice would be here: “She found the company of an imaginary friend called “Papa,” a companion in misfortune.”
Married to a first, then to a second police officer, friends with a private detective, she developed her gifts praised by some, fanciful for others, until her arrival in Agde where she became friends with Gilles of Ettore, who came to consult her, with the result that we know.
