The second part of an extraordinary trial was held Thursday in Lausanne. While the hearings were carried out in March 2022, it took more than a year for the court to hear the prosecutor’s indictment and the lawyers’ arguments, due to various postponements. But as soon as it opened, the session had to be suspended several times, and a climate of tension developed between the Public Prosecutor and the lawyer for the main accused. So much so that the president, annoyed, had to intervene: “I ask you both to stop shouting at each other!”
These painful formalities completed, the prosecutor Anton Rüsch requested five years in prison once morest the main defendant, a sixty-year-old lawyer accused of unfair management and breach of trust. He is accused of having caused the loss of colossal sums to a charitable foundation, of which he had inherited the management following the death of the founder. “According to our calculations, it is approximately 3 million francs which escaped the disadvantaged children of Vaud, because the accused filled his pockets with it. He also distributed jewelry, watches and cars to relatives. And the few donations granted were by cronyism, “protests the prosecutor. The latter took as an aggravating fact the insults uttered once morest all the parties, starting with the Public Prosecutor and the Court.
Speech radically opposed on the side of the defense. If she admits that the expenses do not stick completely with the statutes of the foundation, the manager would have simply followed the instructions and the will of the extremely wealthy founder, expressed before his death. Moreover, it would be the errors of the latter and the poor management of his assets that would have led to the current situation. “Jewellery and precious stones were piled up here and there. It looked like the treasure of Ali Baba’s cave,” comments the lawyer. And his client added: “I never wanted to cause harm to the foundation. On the contrary! I put all my skills to save it. He therefore pleaded acquittal. The verdict will be given later.
Creation of a front company
To conceal his actions, the sexagenarian would have created a sort of front company. He was its boss and employee and his expenses were billed to the foundation. This allowed him to pay himself unduly a salary, according to the prosecution. But not only. “He managed to charge rent to the foundation for a luxury apartment with a swimming pool which he occupied himself, even though the premises belonged to the foundation. And he even explained that, if he bought a car at the expense of the foundation, it was because the Mercedes AMG that he had granted himself was not easy to park in front of the BCV, ”says the prosecutor.
Less culpability for the accomplice
A second man was also in the dock. He would have taken advantage of the generosity of the first, for example to make the foundation assume the expenses of his mortgage. But the Public Ministry considers that his guilt is less. Thus, the prosecutor only requested a 180-day fine (at 3,000 francs per day), suspended. “My client never had the will to harm the foundation or the intention of enriching himself,” retorted his lawyer, who presented his octogenarian client as someone honest and candid. He pleaded acquittal. “My principal has already suffered and paid enough with these more than six years of proceedings,” he said.
