Swingers mecca embroiled in scandal involving mayor and fortune teller
'He has made a mockery out of our town'
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Europe’s top hot spot for swinging couples is now the focus of a simmering scandal.
Every year, tens of thousands of partners who swap land on the sandy, sun-kissed beaches of Agde in the south of France on the Mediterranean.
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Now, a scandal has struck the libertine locale, and is amusing the rest of the country.
According to the BBC, the town’s mayor, former cop and secret service agent Gilles d’Ettore, has become embroiled in a brouhaha involving his fortune teller, Sophia Martinez.
Both are in jail, with the sexy soothsayer charged with embezzlement and hizzoner hammered with corruption charges for allegedly spending oodles of public cash on Martinez.
According to the mayor’s lawyer, Martinez has a reputation for being able to speak to the dead. D’Ettore reportedly asked the oracle to put him in touch with his deceased father and, apparently, she accomplished the task.
When she performed séances for the mayor, her voice would seem to change and take on the tone of d’Ettore’s dead dad.
Cops allege that during the past four years, she manipulated the malleable mayor in person and on the phone using her stellar ventriloquist skills. He received thousands of calls allegedly from beyond the grave.
One call, apparently from an angel, pressed the mayor to financially assist Martinez — and that he did.
The podunk politician is accused of paying for holidays in Thailand and Polynesia for Martinez and her family on the public dime. Voices also encouraged him to hire her family members to work for the town and renovate her house.
“It’s a crazy story,” his lawyer, Jean-Marc Darrigade, told the BBC. “It’s incredible because you have a man in politics, mayor and former MP who is very intelligent. And you discover that a man like that can be manipulated by a woman.”
He added: “This is a woman who came into his life and said I can speak to your deceased father. She found a mental weakness in him and exploited it for personal gain. It took a long time before he accepted he had been conned.”
Her legal eagle, Luc Abratkiewicz, however, doesn’t agree.
“She has admitted betraying the mayor’s confidence but it’s not a case of manipulation because she has owned up to what she did and other clients including doctors and architects said she had mystical powers,” he said.
“She revealed details about their lives that no one else knew about.”
As for locals, they claim the whole sordid affair boils down to sex — though the lawyers deny it — and in a town where carnal capers bloom, that’s saying something.
“I like the mayor, he has been good to me, he was tricked. Maybe he was in love with her,” local Jean-Max said.
Another told the BBC: “For me, sex is at the heart of the scandal. Where there is money involved, then it means sex is part of it too. They kind of go together.”
French right-wingers have been calling on the mayor to resign.
“He can be generous, in love with lots of different women, that’s his personal life. But using taxpayers’ money, that is a different story,” said Fabienne Varesano of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party.
“He has made a mockery out of our town.”
For Martinez, the slammer has been tough. She was attacked by fellow jailbirds who accused her of being a witch.
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