By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 -- When French diplomat Romain Serman was arrested in Manhattan in 2006 for “attempting to purchase cocaine” and resisting arrest, he never faced trial or punishment.
As reflected in the New York Police Department arrest document Inner City Press has exclusively published, here, Serman immediately -- or after resisting arrest -- insisted to police that he was a diplomat with the French Mission to the United Nations.
Yet, after fleeing the US to escape this charge in 2006, Serman has re-appeared in the US representing France as its general consul in San Francisco. Several sources interviewed by Inner City Press say this is legally problematic, and may reflect a failure to disclose by France, negligence by the United States -- or both.
When Serman signed the arrest document, he added “Dip. Fr” after his name. And, sure enough, under then French Permanent Representative to the UN Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, Serman left the United States before any trial on the charge of purchasing cocaine.
Back in Paris, Serman was not punished, but rather continued to work for President Nicolas Sarkozy, on Africa and other issues.
In July 2010, Serman was sent back to the United States, to become France's General Consul in San Francisco.
Most recently Serman hosted Sarkozy minister Frederic Mitterrand during a visit to San Francisco where he met, among others, executive of Google, Amazon and Apple, and linked his visit to what he called the Facebook revolution in Egypt.
Click here for Serman's statements on his Twitter account, here for a video of Serman speaking in Salt Lake City about the education of children.
Six hours after Inner City Press published Serman's arrest document as part of an investigative story on France's policy and actions regarding its now war torn former colony the Ivory Coast / Cote d'Ivoire, Inner City Press was admonished that the publication, particularly of the arrest record, was gratuitous.
But several diplomatic sources, including in the US Mission to the UN, whom Inner City Press interviewed prior to publication said that Serman to re-appear in the United States as a French diplomat after he fled the country to escape charges of purchasing cocaine and resisting arrest is problematic.
It is illegal, one diplomat said, citing a provision of 8 U.S. Code Section 1101 regarding “a failure to appear before a court pursuant to a court order to answer to or dispose of a charge.”
In this case, the well placed source said, while Serman may have tacitly been allowed to flee the United States as a diplomat, he was “not supposed to come back in, as a diplomat.”
The source said that when he has been sent to other countries, it has always been vetted by the country to which he was sent, seeking “agreement,” a French diplomatic word meaning consent.
He noted that this comes at a time when the US is using visa law to block diplomatic status for some at the UN in New York.
This diplomat wondered whether this is a case in which France falsely did not disclose the previous charge against Serman when he was sent to San Francisco last year, or whether US authorities were “negligent” -- or both.
Inquiries are being made. Watch this site.