"A GLAMOROUS SWINDLER.”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 21, 6 November 1935, Page 5

"A GLAMOROUS SWINDLER.”

WIDOW’S QUESTIONING BEGUN.

MAY OCCUPY A WEEK

(Received This Day, 1.30 p.m.)

PARIS, November 5.

“The shadow of Stavisky’s corpse will dominate the trial,” said Judge Bernand, summarising Stanley's frauds at the opening of the trial, Arlette, his widow, and the men accused of complicity therein.

The trial is the climax to twenty months’ investigation of one of the biggest modern frauds. The reading of the indictment occupied two hours, despite the omission of 1956 questions which are being submitted to the jury. Some 270 witnesses have been summoned, including two ex-Premiers, MM. Daladier and Chautemps, also M. Chiappe (ex-Police Chief). • Fifty counsel are engaged:. Arlette Stavisky, fashionably dressed in mourning, with her black hair dressed in the latest style, originally faced the Court calmly, but finally crouched on a wooden bench, weeping and shaken by sobs, being comforted by counsel’s arm about her as Judge Bernand mercilessly traced Stavisky’s career from the time of starting a night club with an elderly woman, whose jewels he stole, to the Bayonne swindles and Stavisky’s suicide. He declared that Stavisky was a glamorous swindler and crooked megalomaniac, who cheated from love of ostentation and luxury, possessing a personality sufficient to involve prominent people, his machinations resulting in the dock being filled with once respected editors and politicians.

Judge Bernand then began questioning accused, which he intimated would occupy a week.