The businessman, a close friend of Fillon, was summoned by three investigating judges on Friday evening and charged with misuse of corporate assets, the Journal du Dimanche newspaper said. Fillon and his British-born wife have both been charged after revelations in the newspaper Le Canard Enchaine in January that his wife had been employed as a parliamentary assistant for 15 years. She is suspected by investigators of having done little or no work for her salary that totalled hundreds of thousands of euros.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017