After being denied his third application for release on Monday, Patrick Balkany starts a new chapter of his judicial adventure with the opening on Wednesday of his appeal on tax evasion. A component for which the mayor of Levallois-Perret had been sentenced in the first instance to a four-year prison sentence with immediate imprisonment, while his wife, Isabelle Balkany, absent at the time of the trial following a suicide attempt, had been sentenced 3 years in prison.
Patrick Balkany in the box, Isabelle on the dock
But this time, Isabelle Balkany will face the judges well: since the incarceration of her husband in the prison of Health three months ago, the deputy mayor of Levallois seems to have recovered, and even took the interim of her husband. However, the couple will not be physically reunited since Patrick Balkany will appear in the box of the accused, in a situation of prisoner. "What is totally unusual and truly unusual in a file of this nature," said the new lawyer Mayor, Romain Dieudonné.
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Last September, the court found Balkany to be guilty of all the charges of tax evasion. The National Public Prosecutor's Office and the tax authorities, which lodged a complaint in 2015, criticize the Balkany for not having paid wealth tax (ISF) between 2010 and 2015, despite assets estimated at 16 million euros a year minimum . But also to have reported largely undervalued income between 2009 and 2014. In total, the amounts evaded are estimated at more than 4 million euros of taxes on income and wealth.
A decision on December 18, before another trial in February 2020
The justice will have to return its verdict Wednesday, December 18 in the morning for this first part of tax fraud. As for the second appeal trials for "aggravated money laundering tax fraud", it will take place in 2020, from February 3 to 19. Patrick Balkany, who announced his intention to embark on the run for his own succession to the municipal elections of March 2020, was sentenced in this part to five years in prison, and ten years of ineligibility.