The former mayor of Levallois-Perret, Patrick Balkany, sentenced on appeal to 5 years in prison for laundering tax fraud, was indicted on suspicion of having used municipal agents for personal purposes while he was mayor, the Nanterre prosecutor's office said on Friday. This indictment follows an interrogation of several hours for "embezzlement of public funds" between 2010 and 2015, said this source confirming information from the Parisian.
The ex-aedile has always claimed his innocence. The investigation was opened in December 2013. An anonymous letter had been sent to the Nanterre prosecutor's office a few months earlier. Patrick Balkany was elected for the first time in Levallois (Hauts-de-Seine) in 1983. With his wife Isabelle, they made of the former red suburbs held by the Communists an easy residential community where industrial wastelands have left the place for luxury residences.
Already convicted on appeal for laundering tax fraud
At the end of May, the couple were sentenced on appeal to 5 and 4 years respectively in prison for laundering tax fraud, without immediate imprisonment due to their state of health. He was also given ten years of ineligibility, with provisional execution of this additional sentence.
They lodged an appeal against this last conviction. If their appeal is rejected, they will be summoned before a sentence enforcement judge, who will respond to their possible requests for a modification of the sentence. If the appeal succeeds, the couple could be sent to a new appeals court for another trial.