PALMADE. Pierre Palmade is back in the addictology department of Bordeaux hospital, at his request, after being released in early June. He is still being charged in connection with the road accident that occurred last February.
Return through the hospital box for Pierre Palmade. The 55-year-old actor asked to return to the Bordeaux addiction service this Friday, June 30, and would have returned to the health establishment he had left at the beginning of the month. So he can go out whenever he wants. A few days earlier, he had been seen in a nightclub in Bordeaux (information initially denied by the establishment despite the videos circulating on social networks), which was legally part of the judicial review of which he is the subject, which had been lightened a few weeks earlier.
Pierre Palmade was involved in a serious road accident on February 10, 2023. While driving under the influence of narcotics according to the first elements of the investigation, he collided with another vehicle and seriously injured three people, including a pregnant woman who lost her unborn baby. Pierre Palmade was indicted on February 25. Still according to BFM TV, Pierre Palmade is now prohibited from driving, from contacting the victims of the accident and must treat his addiction to narcotics.
After several legal developments in connection with his pre-trial detention, Pierre Palmade was released on March 7, 2023 under judicial supervision. Having suffered a CVA – the severity of which is not known – a few weeks before this release, the actor had remained in hospital until June and the justice system had estimated that his state of health “diminished the risks which had based the decision of placement in pre-trial detention.”
The accident that involved Pierre Palmade took place on Friday, February 10, on departmental road 372, which connects Dammarie-lès-Lys to Villiers-en-Bière, in Seine-et-Marne. According to Le Parisien, Pierre Palmade’s car collided with a second vehicle, a Renault Mégane, in which was a woman more than six months pregnant, her 38-year-old brother-in-law and her 6-year-old child. A third car, a Twingo driven by an 80-year-old man, then crashed into one of the two vehicles already in the accident.
According to witnesses cited by Le Parisien, the car at the wheel of which Pierre Palmade was driving would have deported to the left lane, where the vehicle driven by the brother of the pregnant woman was arriving in the opposite direction. Witnesses claim to have seen two people get out of the vehicle driven by Pierre Palmade and flee after the collision. On Saturday February 18, one of the passengers in the car claimed that the other had asked to drive before the serious car accident. The 33-year-old man, heard in police custody, said that Pierre Palmade had used substitute drugs, thirty minutes before the accident, reports BFM TV.
Following the accident, Pierre Palmade tested positive for cocaine and substitute drugs. The alcohol test was negative. The investigation opened by the Melun public prosecutor’s office for unintentional injuries was reclassified as “homicide and unintentional injuries resulting in total incapacity for work of more than three months, per driver under the influence of narcotics” following the death of the driver. child carried by the pregnant woman. Pierre Palmade was indicted on February 27, 2023. In May 2023, investigators ruled out speed as the cause of the accident, as did texting while driving.
An investigation for “possession of child pornography images” targeting Pierre Palmade was opened on Saturday February 18 by the Paris prosecutor’s office, BFM TV also revealed. Not directly related to the serious accident caused by the actor on Friday February 10, this investigation follows a report made to the police by a man who says he knows the actor. According to RTL, the police who recorded the report sent the information to the Paris prosecutor’s office, which decided to open a preliminary investigation. This procedure is normal, given the facts complained of. The prosecution has not yet had confirmation of the charges and has not found such facts.
The man claimed to have in his possession photos and videos proving that Pierre Palmade would hold child pornography images. The minors protection brigade, in charge of the investigations, interviewed the accuser on Sunday February 19 in order to verify the veracity of the facts. Pierre Palmade’s Paris apartment was searched on Sunday afternoon. According to information from BFM TV and Le Parisien dated March 3, 2023, no child pornography content was found in the digital devices that were seized from his home.
Two relatives of the comedian were taken into custody as part of the investigation for possession of child pornography images. One of them was indicted and placed under judicial control on Saturday February 25. Judicial information has been opened for possession, distribution and habitual consultation of child pornography sites, reports BFM TV. The other man was released.
Following the accident, the vital prognosis of Pierre Palmade was, for a time, engaged. His life was no longer in danger in the aftermath of the tragedy. Placed in police custody on Wednesday February 15, the actor was indicted on Friday February 17 and assigned to residence in the addiction service of the Paul-Brousse hospital in Villejuif, in Val-de-Marne. He had to wear an electronic bracelet connected to a receiver there, while a box was installed in his hospital room, reported BFM TV.
The actor was taken care of for his addiction problems and passed a health check. While he would have partied and taken drugs during the 24 hours preceding the accident, Pierre Palmade underwent forced withdrawal.
Saturday February 25, Pierre Palmade suffered a stroke. While under house arrest at the Paul-Brousse hospital in Villejuif, Pierre Palmade was taken to the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital. On Sunday March 5, he was transferred to Marie-Lannelongue hospital, in Plessis-Robinson (Hauts-de-Seine), for 48-hour treatment. Transferred to the cardio-thoracic surgery department, he was to undergo, according to BFM TV, an operation. Note that on Monday March 6, the investigating judge investigating the accident made the decision to lift Pierre Palmade’s pre-trial detention for medical reasons. A choice that says a lot about the state of health of the actor.
In total, including the comedian, five people were injured, four of whom were in serious condition on D-Day. Other victims include a pregnant woman who lost her baby as a result of the shock. She was discharged from hospital on February 21. The driver of the vehicle collided with that of Pierre Palmade, 38 years old, is polytraumatized and has been operated on numerous times. He came out of the artificial coma in which he was placed but remains “fractured, broken, crushed in your body”, revealed his lawyer on February 26, 2023. BFM TV tells us that he “will probably have trouble walking again” and was seriously injured in several vital organs during the collision. He would still be hospitalized in June 2023. His 6-year-old son has a fractured jaw and is “disfigured” according to the families’ lawyer and “cannot feed himself”. He was nevertheless released from the hospital on February 27. An 80-year-old man, who was in the third car, was only slightly injured in the crash.
For the time being, the police are favoring the track of excessive drug use, which would have taken place in a party context mixing alcohol, drugs and sex according to BFMTV. Pierre Palmade would have spent the 24 hours preceding the accident at his home with four young people, described by a relative of the comedian in the columns of Parisian as former escort-boys with whom the actor would have since linked relations. The accident allegedly happened when he wanted to go buy food, with two people who were present at his home.
A search took place on Sunday February 12 at the actor’s home, in Cély-en-Bière, in order to find the trace of the two fleeing passengers and to find out more about the hours preceding the accident. The public prosecutor of Melun, Jean-Michel Bourles, affirmed that no seizure of narcotics was made during this search. According to information from Le Parisien, however, the police discovered equipment used for injection. Inside, a liquid residue that has yet to be analyzed.
Two witnesses fled after the accident. A man was arrested on Wednesday February 15 in Clichy, in the Hauts-de-Seine. 33 years old, he is of Moroccan nationality and would be in an irregular situation. Suspected of also being one of the passengers in Pierre Palmade’s vehicle, a second man surrendered voluntarily. He is 34 years old and is known to the police for drug trafficking. Both would have been, with two other people, at the home of Pierre Palmade, the day before the accident.
According to information from BFM TV, after the accident, the two men went to the home of Pierre Palmade. According to surveillance camera images and thanks to the demarcation of their telephones, they have been identified. Their lawyers spoke on Friday, February 17 to announce that their clients had not been indicted, but placed under the status of assisted witness. The man arrested in Clichy-la-Garenne reportedly explained that he had fallen asleep and did not know how the accident had taken place. “My client is accused of not assisting a person in danger”, indicated Me Nathalie Fonteneau, specifying that “the examining magistrate considered that there were not the necessary elements to put him in examination” .
The Sunday newspaper revealed on Saturday February 18 that one of the two men in the car was sentenced eight days before the accident to one year in prison for drug trafficking. Thus, his conviction was pronounced on February 2 and was accompanied by a probationary suspension of three years. Among the conditions of the reprieve was a ban on contacting Pierre Palmade…
Pierre Palmade was placed in police custody on Wednesday February 15, 2023. While the Melun prosecution had requested that the comedian be placed in pre-trial detention, the judge of freedoms initially requested the placement under judicial supervision of the humorist and ordered that Pierre Palmade wears an electronic bracelet. The artist was placed under house arrest in the addictology department of the Paul-Brousse hospital in Villejuif for six months, BFM TV revealed on Saturday February 18. Subsequently, justice finally requested the placement in pre-trial detention, in the hospital at first, of the comedian on February 27. But Pierre Palmade had suffered a stroke a few days earlier, calling into question the terms of this pre-trial detention. After yet another reversal of the judicial situation, his release under judicial supervision was confirmed on March 14, 2023 by the investigating chamber of the Court of Appeal, which considered that his state of health lessened the risks which had founded the remand decision. However, he is prohibited from leaving the hospital.
This is one of the key issues in this case. Because if the baby is born alive after the accident in which Pierre Palmade is involved, the comedian could then be prosecuted for manslaughter, which will not be the case if the baby died before being born, because in French law, the fetus is not considered a person. We can therefore speak of manslaughter only if the child was born and breathed before dying.
And according to information from BFM TV, analyzes carried out after the death of the passenger’s baby concluded that the fetus was born “viable and alive” after the accident. This examination tells us that the child was born at 10:18 p.m. by caesarean section, but that he was declared dead at 10:51 p.m. The examination would specify that the baby presented “no malformation” and that he died due to the accident. New complementary analyzes must be carried out.
Pierre Palmade was placed under judicial supervision and will wear an electronic bracelet after his indictment for homicide and involuntary injuries. If he is prosecuted in connection with this case, he could risk a lot. Everything will depend on whether the qualification of manslaughter is retained in the case or not. However, the autopsy of the fetus could not determine whether it was alive outside its mother’s womb or not. Further expertise was ordered on Friday 17 February. In addition, the state of health of the six-year-old child or that of his father, still in intensive care, can turn the situation around.
