PALMADE. Still hospitalized, Pierre Palmade is released under judicial control pending the hearing which must decide on the lifting of his pre-trial detention in the coming days.
[Updated March 7, 2023 at 3:40 p.m.] The Pierre Palmade case continues to experience new developments. BFM TV tells us this Tuesday, March 7, 2023 that the 54-year-old actor is currently released and placed under judicial supervision. However, a hearing is due to take place soon with the investigating chamber to determine whether his pre-trial detention has been lifted.
The investigating judge asked Monday, March 6 that the pre-trial detention be lifted, citing “medical reasons”. The Melun prosecution had immediately replied with a summary detention, which was therefore not validated by the Paris Court of Appeal. Sunday, the comedian had been transferred to the Marie-Lannelongue hospital in Plessis-Robinson (Hauts-de-Seine) to follow a treatment of 48 hours, a week after having suffered a stroke whose severity is not not known. More specifically, the 54-year-old actor was transferred to the cardio-thoracic surgery department to undergo an operation, we learned from BFM TV on Monday.
At the same time, the investigations opened against the actor concerning the car accident and the possession of child pornography images are progressing. On this last point, BFMTV revealed that no child pornography file was found on digital devices such as Pierre Palmade’s computer or telephone. An element that does not exculpate the comedian, who will be heard by the investigators as soon as the doctors have given their agreement.
The actor had already been auditioned before his stroke, but he would have mainly been questioned about the serious car accident of February 10. He allegedly told investigators, according to information from BFM TV, that he had consumed cocaine, alcohol and eight doses of 3MMC before the accident, in addition to being sleep deprived after three days without sleep. The actor himself would have recognized that it was “unconscious” to drive under the influence of narcotics. One of the passengers on board reportedly told investigators that Pierre Palmade had asked him to read an SMS that had just arrived on his cell phone just before the accident. The driver then swerved to the left, colliding with the car in front, in which were a 38-year-old man, his 6-year-old son, and a 27-year-old pregnant woman.
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 driving Pierre Palmade was 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 for 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 and placed in pre-trial detention on February 27, 2023. A detention called into question on Monday March 6 as explained above.
An investigation for “possession of child pornography images” targeting Pierre Palmade was opened on Saturday February 18 by the Paris prosecutor’s office, reveals BFM TV. Not directly related to the serious accident caused by the comedian on Friday, February 10, this investigation follows a report made to the police by a man who says he knows the comedian. 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. Investigators were looking for computer equipment on which child pornography was recorded. According to information from Le Parisien, investigators from the Brigade for the Protection of Minors (BPM) in Paris discovered child pornography files on one of his computers, seized during searches of his homes.
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, is polytraumatized and has been operated on six 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. Her 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 taken into 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 requested that the comedian be placed under judicial supervision and ordered that Pierre Palmade wears an electronic bracelet, said the prosecution who decided Friday evening to appeal. 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. A decision that is not understood by the family of the injured. The older brother of one of the victims, guest of BFM TV on Saturday February 18, considered that the judge’s position “is very absurd”, recalling that Pierre Palmade had already been sentenced in 2019 for acquiring narcotics. According to him, “the state and justice are as guilty as he is”.
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.
