Electoral fraud in Bastia: three officials referred to Paris criminal court
Jean-Sébastien de Casalta, François Tatti and Frédéric Poletti are being referred to the Paris criminal court for suspicions of electoral corruption during the 2020 municipal elections.
Bastia municipal election 2020: three defendants referred to Paris for fraud
Jean-Sébastien de Casalta, François Tatti and Frédéric Poletti will appear before the Paris criminal court for suspicions of electoral fraud linked to the 2020 municipal campaign in Bastia. According to Google News FR — Crime (fr), the information, confirmed by Corse-Matin on the basis of initial reporting by RCFM, follows the referral order to criminal court issued by the investigating judge handling the case.
The three men are suspected of having organised, during the Covid-19 crisis, the distribution of food parcels to families in need, via two associations, for the purpose of obtaining votes in the municipal poll won by the nationalist list of Pierre Savelli.
Social-purpose associations transformed into electoral tools
At the heart of the case are two associative structures, Victoria and Ensemble, which distributed food supplies to approximately 80 families, or roughly 120 people, in the southern districts of Bastia since the start of the health crisis. According to the investigation, these entities would in reality have served only as cover for a political action designed to capture votes.
The bylaws of the two associations would have been amended on 20 April 2020, between the two rounds of the election, officially to "respond to the Covid-19 crisis". But investigators note that their premises were those of the Left Radical Party (PRG) in Bastia, and that the members of the board were all found to be close associates or even relatives of candidates on the Unione per Bastia list, led by lawyer Jean-Sébastien de Casalta. The telephone number of the Victoria association was moreover identical to that used on an electoral propaganda document of the Casalta list.
The referral order directly cites this point: "The genuine desire to help one's neighbour does not exclude the wish to draw electoral benefit from one's action."
The role of each defendant
According to the investigating judge, Frédéric Poletti, campaign director for Jean-Sébastien de Casalta, "played a decisive role in the use of associations to distribute parcels". From 18 March 2020 onwards, he would have proposed mobilising the "associative world with social purpose" and putting the campaign team "at the service of these associations". This initiative would have been maintained despite "François Tatti's initial opposition, who, as a veteran of political campaigns, had immediately perceived the legal risk it entailed."
François Tatti, then president of the Bastia metropolitan authority (Cab), is for his part suspected of having "completely changed position, without providing justifications for this change", after an initial refusal. The order specifies that he "was fully aware of the political and electoralist aspect of the parcel distribution, and that he ensured this activity was put in place and continued for as long as possible", while taking care to "not appear in the foreground".
Jean-Sébastien de Casalta is accused of having "chosen to validate the distribution of parcels, while taking care to maintain ambiguity about the nature of this intervention. He could not have been unaware of the political and electoralist nature of these actions," notes the investigating magistrate, who adds however that this "did not exclude the parallel existence of genuine altruistic feelings".
Tatti also targeted for patronage practices
François Tatti is also being prosecuted for having used jobs at the metropolitan authority in order to influence votes. The investigation describes these actions as "patronage practices" and cites several telephone conversations recorded whilst the elected official was under surveillance. He would notably have declared to two Cab agents: "It is not the president who is calling you, but it is the candidate in the municipal election." These calls, the order indicates, "were manifestly perfectly understood by his interlocutors".
No case to answer for five others, abandonment of masks section
Five other people, including Fabrice Rallo, former chief of staff of the Cab president, benefited from no case to answer. The section concerning the distribution of anti-Covid masks carried out by the metropolitan authority was also abandoned. The investigating magistrate estimated that "it is not sufficiently established by the testimony collected that masks from these stocks were included with the food parcels".
The investigators consider that the distribution of food supplies "made it possible for the campaign to continue political action at a time when it was no longer possible, given the health context, to pursue it through ordinary channels, and to attempt to counterbalance the influence of the nationalist camp".
Defence lawyers contest the charges
Me Jean-André Albertini, counsel for François Tatti, declined to comment "at this stage of proceedings". The lawyers for the two other defendants expressed themselves. Me Ambre Angelini, lawyer for Frédéric Poletti, maintains that "no concrete element of the proceedings makes it possible to characterise against him any involvement whatsoever in facts of electoral corruption" and recalls that the distribution of food parcels was part of "the exceptional health and social context of the year 2020". She adds that the circumstance that Poletti performed the duties of campaign director "cannot, by itself, make it possible to impute to him any fraudulent intention whatsoever".
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)