12 months suspended prison sentence for former Secretary of State Thierry Mandon

Former Socialist Secretary of State Thierry Mandon was sentenced on Friday to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a 22,000 euro fine for fraud linked to his former functions as general director of the Cité du design in Saint-Étienne. The 66-year-old man was found guilty by the Saint-Étienne criminal court of“scams”, “attempted misappropriation of public property by a person holding public authority”, “forgery and use of forgery in writing” et “abuse of corporate assets”.

In addition to the prison sentences and fines, the former director of the Cité du design of Saint-Étienne, from 2018 to 2022, is sentenced to five years of ineligibility as well as a permanent ban from chairing or directing a public establishment, said the president of the court on Friday, specifying that “the whole thing is immediately enforceable”. He will therefore have to resign from his position as secretary general of the National Commerce Council, which he has held since June 2023, his lawyer Mr. André Buffard admitted to AFP.

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The decision to appeal “is under consideration”he added. Thierry Mandon was accused of several financial crimes, between 2019 and 2021, for a total amount of 22,000 euros, when he was both general director of the Cité du design de Saint-Étienne and president of its commercial subsidiary, SAS Cité Services. He admitted to having produced false invoices to finance, for nearly 15,000 euros, a custom staircase at his Parisian home and to have Cité Services reimburse 43 TGV trips from Paris to Saint-Étienne previously paid for by the Cité du design, as well as than a trip to China which ultimately did not take place because of covid.

Denouncing “the meander of Mr. Mandon’s bombastic explanations”the representative of the prosecution had stigmatized “the embezzlement of public funds, even if it is pathetic in terms of its amount, on the part of a personality who has had a remarkable political career”but one “end of journey of petty crook, abuser of society and embezzler of public funds”. The defense had pleaded guilty, while emphasizing that all of the embezzled sums had been reimbursed by their client before the report made in November 2022 by the president of the Cité du design, Marc Chassaubéné, also deputy for culture of Saint-Étienne .