Suspicions of embezzlement: a search of Senator L.R. Mark-Philippe Dobresse

The noose tightens around Marc-Philippe Dobresse. On Thursday at the home of Senator L.R. du Nord was searched as part of an embezzlement investigation against an elected official, a source close to the investigation said, confirming Le Monde’s information.

The former minister of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, since 2019, is under investigation by the National Fiscal Prosecutor’s Office (NFP) in connection with the use of his representative mandate expenses allowance (IRFM) when he was an MP for the North, between 2012 and 2017. Investigators from the Paris Judicial Police also traveled to Lambersart (Nord) Town Hall to obtain documents in the case.

The Financial Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation following a report by the Higher Authority for Public Transparency (HATVP). According to the online publication Médiacités, which revealed the fact of the investigation in 2020, HATVP found about 100,000 euros in disputed expenses that could fall under the embezzlement of public funds article.

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In 2018, HATVP filed about fifteen elected officials in court after checking differences in their assets between the first IRFM framework rules in 2015 and the end of their terms in 2017. closed without further action, the national financial prosecutor’s office announced in March 2022, without specifying the identities of the parliamentarians concerned.

These classifications took place at the end of “preliminary damages and after substantiating reimbursement to the National Assembly or the Senate for expenses deemed ineligible for reimbursement to the mandate’s expenses representative,” the prosecution said. . The amounts reimbursed directly to Parliament “ranged from €6,707 to €47,299”.

The first sentence was handed down in January: Philippe Nachbar, former LR senator from Meurthe-et-Moselle, was sentenced to three years of disqualification and a fine of 100,000 euros for the misuse of 98,000 euros of compensation for mandate costs between 2015 and 2017 during Appearance with a preliminary confession of guilt (PPC).