This is the case within the case. The Meaux criminal court judged – this Monday – a resident of Chelles, initially suspected of being involved in drug trafficking. Before being dismissed, while two men and a woman were sentenced to prison terms last Friday.
The problem is that instead of keeping a low profile, the young man – aged 25 – threatened to kill a neighbour he suspected of having ratted him out. Drunk – and clearly after having inhaled nitrous oxide – the Chellois allegedly threatened this woman to attack her, her husband, her daughter and her dog, with a “shotgun”. The municipal police intervened.
Then, after a neighborhood investigation, the police officers from the Villeparisis urban police station decided to arrest him at his home on rue Louise-Michel two days later. And there, he used violence against two of the police officers.
“Only one person can impose omerta”
Hence his immediate appearance before the Meaux court, for death threats and violence against police officers. It is an understatement to say that the beginning of the hearing was complicated since the defendant – his face closed – overreacted to everything. He intervened while the presiding judge Isabelle Verissimo was leading the hearing. She warned him once, twice, then had him expelled from the court box. The defendant himself asked to leave.
His personality was at the center of the debates. And for good reason: none of the neighbors interviewed by the police agreed to give their identity. All described the climate of terror in which they live, mentioning comings and goings linked to drug trafficking at the foot of their residence. The defendant’s mother herself left the accommodation, with her two youngest children, because she did not feel safe there.
Deputy prosecutor Marlène Leroy requested a one-year suspended prison sentence with 140 hours of community service, as well as a three-year ban on appearing in the city: “This case illustrates how a single person can impose omerta in a neighborhood.” The task was not easy for the defense attorney: “The night of the threats, my client was completely wasted. He needs care.” The judges went beyond the requisitions since they sentenced the Chellois to a year in prison, with a committal warrant. They also issued a three-year ban on appearing in the city.
