Paris, Dec 1, (dpa/GNA) – A court in France has sentenced the mayor of the city of Saint Étienne near Lyon, Gaël Perdriau, to five years in prison for blackmailing a political rival with a sex tape.
The court found it proven that the 53-year-old conservative politician had his first deputy filmed with a hidden camera in the company of a male prostitute in a Paris hotel, the newspaper Le Figaro reported on Monday. The deputy is said to have been deliberately set up, as part of a plan to sideline him.
One year of the sentence was suspended.
The mayor maintained his innocence in court until the end of the trial, and has announced that he will appeal.
However, he must vacate his office at city hall immediately following the verdict.
In her reasoning, presiding judge Brigitte Verney spoke of the “extreme seriousness of the offences committed.”
Three other individuals involved in the blackmail, which lasted several years, were also sentenced to prison terms.
The conservative Republicans, of which Perdriau was vice chairman at the time, have already expelled the mayor for using “despicable methods” against a political rival.
GNA