Jean-Marc Reiser, who is currently serving a life sentence for murder, was sentenced Thursday in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) to one year in prison for hitting a police officer as part of a criminal investigation.
In July 2023, Jean-Marc Reiser was placed in police custody and then indicted in the case of the disappearance of Françoise Hohmann in 1987. It was at his home that this sales representative made her last visit before disappearing . During the filmed police custody, Jean-Marc Reiser had an altercation with the police officer who was questioning him, ending up punching him and headbutting him.
Prosecuted for violence, threats and insults against a person holding public authority, he was sentenced to one year in prison with a committal warrant, a judicial source told AFP, confirming information from Latest News of Alsace. The prosecution had requested double.
“Was Mr. Reiser gratuitously violent towards the police officer? »
Jean-Marc Reiser's lawyer, Emmanuel Spano, deplored that the video of police custody was not viewed by the court, which relied on the testimonies of other police officers and a medical certificate.
According to Emmanuel Spano, his client had been brutalized by the investigator before hitting him. “How can we judge this case without indisputable proof of the course of this altercation, even though it can be made available to us? “, he was indignant.
“Was Mr. Reiser gratuitously violent towards the police officer, or did this occur in reaction to excessive zeal on the part of the police officer?” I don’t know, but a video exists and my request (to view it) was rejected,” he regretted.
Already convicted in 2003
In 2001, Jean-Marc Reiser was definitively acquitted of the murder of Françoise Hohmann, due to lack of evidence. But in February 2020, citing “new charges”, the Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office reopened a judicial investigation into this case, no longer for murder but for “criminal arbitrary confinement” and “concealment of a corpse”.
Jean-Marc Reiser was sentenced on appeal at the end of June 2023 by the Haut-Rhin Assize Court to life imprisonment with 22 years of security for the assassination of Sophie le Tan, in 2018. He was appealed to the Court of Cassation.
He was previously sentenced to court in 2003 for rape and sexual assault.