Pierre Palmade accident: released from police custody, the comedian brought to court

Placed in police custody on Wednesday, Pierre Palmade will be brought before the Melun court, radio station RTL revealed on Friday, February 17.

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• Pierre Palmade released from police custody and brought to court in Melun. Placed in police custody on Wednesday February 15, Pierre Palmade was released on Friday February 17 at noon, according to information from RTL. His transfer to the Melun court was then decided for him to be referred there for a possible indictment.
• What did Pierre Palmade say while in police custody? The comedian is still facing investigators following the serious accident that occurred on February 10. After apologizing to the three other victims, he said he had no recollection of the accident, simply remembering closing the gate before leaving in the car, according to reports from TF1 and LCI. He confirmed that he was accompanied by two men, with whom he had sex and took drugs, such as cocaine and 3-MMC. His custody was extended.
• Two men were also taken into custody. Wednesday. Suspected of being one of the passengers in Pierre Palmade’s vehicle, one surrendered voluntarily, the other was arrested in Clichy-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine). The first is 34 years old, and would be known to the police for drug trafficking. The second, aged 33, is of Moroccan nationality and in an irregular situation. Both would have been, with two other people, at the home of Pierre Palmade the day before the accident. While in police custody, one of them said he fell asleep and did not know how the accident happened.
• What to expect from these guards? There are still gray areas to be clarified on the accident which occurred on Friday February 10: why Pierre Palmade he swerved and swerved out of his lane before crashing into the oncoming vehicle, causing three serious injuries including a six-year-old child and a pregnant woman who lost her baby. These police custody can lead to the indictment of the three concerned. Remember that Pierre Palmade risks up to 10 years in prison, if manslaughter is retained. The two passengers can be prosecuted for failure to assist a person in danger.
• Are the victims out of the woods? The 6-year-old came out of a coma on the afternoon of Thursday, February 16, six days after the accident, according to information from BFM TV. “Disfigured”, in the words of the family lawyer, the child has a fractured jaw and struggles to speak, drink and eat. His father, the accident driver, is still in intensive care but his health is improving after seven operations.

case update

It was around 6:45 p.m. on Friday February 10 when the accident that involved Pierre Palmade took place on departmental road 372, which connects Dammarie-les-Lys to Villiers-en-Bière, in Seine-et-Marne. According to information from Parisian, Pierre Palmade’s car, a Peugeot 3008, allegedly hit 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 six-year-old child. A third car, a Twingo driven by an 80-year-old man, then hit one of the two vehicles already involved in the accident.

According to witnesses cited by The Parisian, 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. These two men, who would be in their twenties according to The Parisiancould be prosecuted for failure to assist a person in danger.

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 on Saturday February 11 as “homicide and unintentional injuries by driver resulting in total incapacity for work of more than three months, by driver under the influence of narcotics” following the death of the child carried by the pregnant woman.

A video of the three cars involved in the accident was revealed on social networks by a journalist. We see the carcasses of the vehicles, from which the victims had to be extricated. The RD372 had to be temporarily closed. About twenty firefighters had to intervene on the spot. At their side, three medical teams from Samu also had to move in order to extract the victims stuck in two of the vehicles.

Following the road accident in which Pierre Palmade was involved, the vital prognosis of the comedian was then engaged. However, his days were no longer in danger the day after the tragedy. Today, the 54-year-old comedian is still hospitalized at the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital, but he is no longer in intensive care. He was transferred to the digestive surgery department and placed under psychological control, according to BFM TV. His condition is no longer considered worrying.

Pierre Palmade is not the only person injured in this tragic accident. In total, including the comedian, five people were injured, four of whom were in serious condition. Among the other victims, there is a woman, pregnant, who lost her baby following the shock. The driver of the vehicle collided with that of Pierre Palmade, aged 38, is polytraumatized and has been operated on between 7 times. Her 6-year-old son has a fractured jaw and is “disfigured” according to the families’ lawyer. They are both still in intensive care since the accident but show signs of improvement, the child is also out of the coma on Thursday, February 16. As for the fourth victim of the accident, it is an 80-year-old man who occupied the third car. He was only slightly injured in the accident.

For the time being, the police are favoring the trail of excessive drug consumption, which would have taken place in a context of a party mixing alcohol, drugs and sex according to BFM TV. Pierre Palmade would have spent the 24 hours preceding the accident caused by the loss of control of his vehicle 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 has reportedly since linked up. The accident allegedly happened when he wanted to go buy food, with two people who were present at his home. Rock Palmade tested positive for cocaine after the accident.

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 the Parisian, however, the police discovered equipment used for injection. Inside, a liquid residue that has yet to be analyzed. Investigators also found objects of a sexual nature at Pierre Palmade’s home.

Two witnesses fled after the accident and were called on Monday February 13, 2023 “to go to any police station or gendarmerie brigade to explain the facts” by the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior, Camille Chaize, on the waves of franceinfo. A man was arrested this Wednesday, February 15 in Clichy, in the Hauts-de-Seine, suspected of being one of the two passengers present in the comedian’s car. The woman who was hosting him was also arrested by the police. A few hours later, the second passenger was also arrested and taken into custody. The man would have made it known before, through his lawyer, that he intended to surrender, according to BFM-TV.

According to information from Parisian, the two people who were in Pierre Palmade’s vehicle before fleeing would be former escort boys that the comedian would have “met on social networks”. According to the Ile-de-France newspaper, they had been staying with Pierre Palmade since Thursday February 9. The three men reportedly bonded over “regular, party-based relationships”. It should be noted that the Melun public prosecutor’s office requested that the video surveillance images of the town of Cély-en-Brière, where Pierre Palmade’s home is located, be requisitioned in order to have more elements on the route of the vehicle and the two fleeing people.

Five days after the serious road accident in which he was involved, Pierre Palmade was placed in police custody this Wednesday, February 15, 2023. The doctors gave the green light for the actor to be heard by the police to give his version of the facts about the incident, but also say more about the passengers in his vehicle. The interrogation can last up to 48 hours.

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. According to the lawyer for the family of the pregnant woman, Me Mourad Battikh, who spoke on Tuesday February 14 at a press conference, a cesarean delivery would have taken place. The baby “would have been born alive, but this remains to be confirmed”, indicated the lawyer. And to insist: “There was no difficulty in pregnancy before the accident.”

What does Pierre Palmade risk after his accident?

For the time being, Pierre Palmade is not indicted in connection with the accident which occurred on February 10. He must still be heard by the investigators under the regime of police custody, which his state of health does not yet allow. If he is prosecuted in this case, Pierre Palmade could risk a lot. Everything will depend on whether the qualification of manslaughter is retained in the case or not. The autopsy of the fetus has yet to determine whether it was alive outside its mother’s womb or not and confirm. The state of health of the six-year-old child, whose vital prognosis was still engaged on Monday, can also turn the situation around.

• If manslaughter is upheld, the comedian may be prosecuted for manslaughter and may be punished by a minimum of 5 years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros. Aggravating circumstances can be held against the actor, who tested positive for cocaine following the accident. In the case of driving under the influence of drugs, added to the speed of the vehicle or the crossing of the continuous line for example, the penalty can increase and go up to 10 years of imprisonment and 150,000 euros fine.
• If manslaughter is not retained, Pierre Palmade could be prosecuted only for “aggravated involuntary injuries”. According to Antoine Régley, road traffic lawyer at the Lille Bar, interviewed by The Parisian“in the worst case, the perpetrator of the offense may be punished with a prison sentence arranged with, for example, the wearing of an electronic bracelet”.