Paris (AFP)
Where does the money come from? To answer this question, at the center of the trial for fiscal fraud of the city councilors of Levallois-Perret, Isabelle Balkany developed on Tuesday before the Paris Court of Appeal her theory of the "mattress syndrome".
President Sophie Clément announces that we are going to talk about "income" and "cash". In this case, the Balkany spouses were sentenced at first instance for not having paid the wealth tax (ISF) between 2010 and 2015, and for having declared income that was largely undervalued between 2009 and 2014.
The magistrate begins by recalling some figures, noting that in 2012, the spouses paid "196,293 euros in wages" to their domestic workers while they declared "an income of 127,866 euros".
Between 2010 and 2013, the couple withdrew 51,850 euros in cash and, during the same period, paid cash 87,000 euros in airline tickets in "business class".
"Our expenses are greater than our income, it's obvious from God!" Exclaims, annoyed, Isabelle Balkany, 72, alone at the helm, in the absence of her hospitalized husband.
"What allowed us to do this is that mom died. I had 2 million euros of capital (in 2008) and we assumed our lifestyle with this capital" paid into "my BNP account in Levallois, "she says.
The tax lawyer points out that the problem here is not the inheritance legally arrived in the account of Mrs. Balkany, but "the expenses in cash, without there being any withdrawal".
"Ah! You really have the art of mixing everything. It's almost comical!" Exclaims the defendant, who also admitted to having perceived an undeclared heritage in Switzerland.
The tension mounts in the room, where Isabelle Balkany multiplies untimely declarations: against the taxman ironically qualified as "life companion" of the couple, against the "venomous keyboards" of the press, against this "great unpacking" that the court imposes on him .
At the end, the prosecution claims "a minimum of courtesy" at the hearing. "Isabelle, sit down", will end up telling her lawyer, after suggesting that she put away her cell phone.
- "Silver spoon" -
The president brings it back to cash: where does it come from?
"Well, let me be clear. Patrick told you about the ingots (which he says he inherited from his father). My mother, until his death, continued to give me money", "always in cash ", she assures.
She laughs when she recounts the "hunting for loot" organized in vain by the examining magistrate in her residence at the Giverny mill (Eure) "with 20 gendarmes and a sniffer dog" who found only "two pence in an old pinball machine. "
The general counsel summed up: "So the cash was stored somewhere before it was spent, because if it had been paid into an account, we would have track of it, right?"
"Yes," sighs Isabelle Balkany, "it's called mattress syndrome".
"I can't help it if I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth," she continues. "My father worked all his life, made a lot of money. Patrick's father had money in Switzerland. In the end, we didn't work to make money, we did it for us to serve "a city and its inhabitants.
She recalls her absence at the first trial, after a massive absorption of drugs: "I cracked, it was not to die, it was to stop it. I had the feeling that all that we had been flouted. "
The court returns to "cash" which floods the file. Isabelle Balkany admits going from time to time changing tickets at the Intermarché - "it was practical" -, but denounces the lies of the witnesses whom she says were motivated by bitterness.
The 500-euro bills spilling over from Patrick Balkany's robe? A lie from a dismissed employee. Tickets forgotten in a suit at the dry cleaning? A small revenge because she boycotted the establishment - "the lady of the pressing had fucked up in the air a jacket of my grandson".
The requisitions are expected on Wednesday morning.
© 2019 AFP