Betrayed by someone you trust. This Tuesday, September 27, Le Parisien revealed the conviction of the former personal assistant of Michel Jonasz. Indeed, the latter was tried on Monday by the Paris court for breach of trust and money laundering.
The 53-year-old woman was recruited by the artist in 2004. She took care of “the entry of the accounts, the administrative emails, the payment of the creditors”, specifies Maître Maxime Bréfort, the latter’s lawyer. Without a diploma but versatile, her presence proves to be precious for the singer and actor who places all her trust in her.
In 2013, she started embezzling money from her employer. In particular, she signed checks or sent transfers. For six years, she was able to double her salary and was also able to afford several family trips to New York or across Europe. The total cost of the damage was estimated at 398,000 euros. It was another assistant to the artist who discovered the pot of roses, “intrigued by accounting errors”.
At first, Michel Jonasz would have been “rather understanding”, without yet being aware of the sums embezzled, reports the daily. He even reportedly gave his employee a week off so she could reflect on her actions. In the end, the secretary was fired in 2019. This Monday, September 26, justice delivered its verdict: the former personal assistant of the singer and actor received an 18-month suspended prison sentence. In particular, it will have to reimburse the sums unduly received, under penalty of revocation of the stay.
On September 3, 2021, Michel Jonasz was invited to the show Bon dimanche show on RTL. Host Bruno Guillon asked the singer about the time he “nearly passed out during a concert”. The singer, who no longer remembers exactly when and where it happened, remembers however that he was singing a song by James Brown with his group, the King Set.
“I’m singing Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag and you know, James Brown, he was screaming. And I’m like, ‘I’m going to do this’ and boom I fell over, passed out from the scream I gave,” he said. remembers the artist. “I couldn’t breathe! No, but I was standing up and I fell. And that was very curious because I opened my eyes and I saw a guy playing guitar, it was the guitarist who looked at me and he continued to play. It’s as if I had dreamed all night, it’s incredible, I fell stiff by the cry of James Brown. I never did it again”.
Born in 1947 in Drancy, Michel Jonasz comes from a Hungarian family of Jewish origin. His mother, Charlotte Weisberg, narrowly escaped the Holocaust, which unfortunately did not spare her family. In an interview granted to Paris Match in March 2010, the artist recounts the disappearance of his mother’s family during the Second World War. His mother’s parents and his two younger brothers and sisters were expelled from Hungary to Poland to be deported there, as well as his two brothers living in Paris. One was denounced by the concierge of his building, the second had the misfortune to have crossed paths with the police. A sister of his mother was found dead “mysteriously in her maid’s room”. Only the sister, who opened a hair salon in Blanc-Mesnil, survived this painful period.
During his childhood, the artist confided to the weekly that he often heard his mother repeat: “Why am I still alive, why am I still here?”. One day, he decides to question her… His mother then replied: “So as not to forget”. In 2009, Michel Jonasz decided to pay homage to his maternal grandfather by writing a play entitled in his name: Abraham. Alone on stage, he embodies with tenderness and humor his Jewish grandfather who, at the age of 20, will leave Poland to live in Hungary, before experiencing deportation.