Marigot:--- Former Director of Urbanism who was recently promoted as the Director of Service Technique Josi Carti is facing two months suspended sentenced for what the prosecutor termed as abusing his power for his own interest while he was the Director of Urbanism from 2002 to 2003.
Carti appeared in the Criminal Courts on St. Martin on Thursday charged with "Prise Ilegal D'Interets par charge de mission public dans une Affaire. Dont il assure l'administration ou la surveillance commis du 1 Janvier 2002 au 31 Décembre 2003 à St. Martin."
The President of the Court in reading the charges to Carti said that Carti while being head of Urbanism applied for a building permit for his company "Societe Civile de Construction Vente SCCV Tropicana" and obtained the building permit in less than two months. Josi Carti owns 85% shares in SCCV Tropicana. SCCV Tropicana requested the building permit on April 5th, 2002 and it was granted on May 21st, 2002.
The President of the Court said a former member of the municipal council and his daughter sold land to SCCV Tropicana. The President in his remarks while reading from the file said that he is of the opinion that there were group of people working in the commune with bad intentions. The building permit was signed off by Mayor Albert Fleming. Several persons including the former director of SEMSAMAR Jean-Paul Fisher was questioned during the investigation.
This company constructs apartment buildings for the purpose of selling. The President of the Court told Carti that the investigation started when an association who was also interested in the development of a property in La Colmbe in Concordia filed a complaint against him. The association "La Colombe et ses Evirons" was also interested in the purchasing the same property.
According to the court, Carti gave one of his subordinates his file to sign off on while not telling the civil servant that the company was his or that he owns most of the shares in the company. SCCV Tropicana has six apartment buildings, one of which was sold. The civil servant Serge Weimum told the investigating judge that he did not perform his duties to verify the ownership and the documents that were in the file. However, the court believes that Carti prepared his file and used the person working under him to sign off on his request in a nick of time.
The President asked Carti several questions pertaining to his company, he asked him what was his salary at the Collectivity which he said is Euros 3,800 per month, the President of the Court also wanted to know if Carti receives dividends from the company and if he declares these incomes when filing his taxes? Josi Carti told the court that the company does not pay out dividends and only one of the apartments was sold.
Carti told the court that even though he is a civil servant who was working for the commune at the time he formed the company to build his future since he is the father of four children. He also informed the court that he regretted opening such a company because if he did not he would have been standing before him on Thursday.
Prosecutor Patrick de Firmae asked Carti why the detectives who investigated the case could not find a certain document in his file when they collected it from the Collectivity, Carti told the Prosecutor he did not know but when the investigators asked him about the document he provided them with a copy of the missing document. Prosecutor de Firmae said that the infractions committed by Carti were not very serious, therefore he asked the court to condemn Carti to two months suspended sentence.
Attorneys at Law Paris and Maitre Karine Jaulin told the court that Carti did not break the law. Both attorneys asked the court why Wienum was not charged even though he admitted to the court that he did not perform his duties. Maitre Paris also stated that it is the Prefecture that has to verify and see if the building permit that was delivered to SCCV Tropicana was in conformity with the law. The Court will pronounce its decision on February 14th, 2013.
