France: the Balkany spouses sentenced to prison for laundering tax fraud
Patrick and Isabelle Balkany were sentenced respectively to four and a half years and three and a half years in prison.
AFP/File
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The Paris Court of Appeal on Monday sentenced the former Hauts-de-Seine city councilors Patrick and Isabelle Balkany respectively to four and a half years, and three and a half years in prison, a fine of 100,000 euros and ten years of ineligibility for laundering tax evasion.
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At the end of a third trial, the court also ordered a total confusion of these sanctions with those of three years of firm imprisonment pronounced in the tax evasion aspect of the Balkany case.
For their lawyers, this decision means that
Patrick Balkany
, who has spent a little less than a year in detention, will not return to prison in this case, and that his wife will not be incarcerated either.
In May 2020, the former LR mayor of Levallois-Perret and his ex-first deputy were sentenced on appeal to five and four years in prison, as well as the same fines and ineligibility.
The Court of Cassation then definitively confirmed their guilt, but it partially annulled the decision and ordered a new trial solely on the length of the sentences.
400,000 euros in damages to the State
On Monday, the Court of Appeal also pronounced the confiscation of the usufruct of the Cossy mill, in Giverny (Eure), where the 74 and 75-year-old couple currently resides and whose children are bare owners.
They were finally ordered to pay 400,000 euros in damages to the State, an amount substantially reduced compared to the million euros pronounced in May 2020.
In this part, the couple was found guilty of having concealed between 2007 and 2014 some 13 million euros in tax assets, including two sumptuous villas in the Caribbean and Morocco.
Patrick Balkany was also sentenced for illegal taking of interests, the justice having considered that he had benefited from "personal advantages" in kind within the framework of a large real estate contract of the city of Levallois-Perret, city of which he was mayor from 1983 to 1995 and then from 2001 to 2020.
(With
AFP
)
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