Two Seated Figuresthe lawyers Joseph Cohen-Sabban and Xavier Nogueraswill appear before the Paris Criminal Court, suspected of having produced forgeries before an Assize Court at the end of 2018 to exonerate, in vain, le narcotrafiquant Robert Dawes.
In an order dated Monday, three Parisian investigating judges are sending these two lawyers to trial for “complicity in attempted fraud in judgment” and for “breach of professional secrecy”.
A case dating from 2018
The case began with the trial at the Assizes in December 2018 in Paris of Robert Dawes, accused of having imported 1.3 tons of cocaine in 2013 on board an Air France flight connecting Caracas to Paris, a seizure of a amount then estimated at 50 million euros.
At the opening of the proceedings, his lawyers had produced a supposed Spanish order presenting as illegal a capital telephone tapping for the prosecution. “Why isn’t it on file?” »had thundered Me Joseph Cohen-Sabban.
With his colleagues Xavier Nogueras and Hugues Vigier, the lawyer had pounded the procedure and demanded the dismissal of the trial as well as additional information in order to record the authenticity of the documents.
Gold that was actually lead
The gold presented at the hearing to exculpate their client quickly turned to lead: in a few days, the court dismissed these documents and qualified them as « faux ».
Dawes was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, and a judicial investigation was opened in March 2019 on these suspicions of forgery.
After nearly three years of investigation, Mes Nogueras and Cohen-Sabban are sent back to trial, suspected of having “espoused the treacherous schemes and schemes employed by Robert Dawes”.
The defense considers the accusations “grotesque”
The verifications of the two lawyers on the authenticity of what she qualifies as « miraculous parts […] seems to have had the exclusive purpose of of in “enhance credit” at the Assize Court of Paris, according to the order.
“It’s so grotesque, and I have so many ways to demonstrate it that the excess of the assertions of this ordinance leaves me unmoved”reacted Me Cohen-Sabban
“In no case did Me Xavier Nogueras participate in the facts of complicity in attempted fraud in the judgment and he did not violate any ethical rules” reacted his lawyers, Me Matthieu Chirez and Me Hervé Temime.
During the trial, Robert Dawes and his liegeman Evan Hughes will be tried for “attempted fraud in judgment” and for “false in public writing”. Three other lawyers, including Me Hugues Vigier, are the subject of a dismissal.
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