Paris: retired man tried for defrauding €235,330 from 32 elderly priests
A 70-year-old man is appearing before the Paris court for having extracted more than €235,000 from about thirty octogenarian priests by fabricating a life of distress.
Paris: retired man tried for defrauding €235,330 from 32 elderly priests
A 70-year-old retired man, living in Sarcelles (Val-d'Oise), is currently being tried at the Paris court for fraud against vulnerable persons. His wife is also being prosecuted for receiving stolen goods from fraud.
Between 2019 and 2025, Evariste N.L. allegedly misappropriated €235,330 from 32 priests, all aged over 80. He contacted them individually by post, and sometimes by email, presenting himself as a man in great distress. He told of having lost his wife, raised twin daughters alone who were sick, suffered a heart attack and prostate surgery, and lost a son. A tragic existence designed to arouse the compassion of his correspondents.
However, none of these misfortunes were real. The accused was never a widower, father of twins, a victim of a heart attack, or subjected to prostate surgery. He had not lost a spouse or child either. Everything was completely fabricated to extract money from clergymen in his circle.
When passing through the corridors of the courthouse, the man disputed the accusations. "I am being treated as a swindler! I simply asked for help from priests I knew!" he said, apparently irritated by the term fraud. His companion, present at his side, shared this sense of injustice.
The case was revealed by Le Figaro, which reports that some of the priest victims lived in the same nursing home. The method consisted of soliciting donations by tugging at the heartstrings of Christian charity, by asking the question: "Do you have a heart?"
Source: Le Figaro
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)