French Jewish power couple lose money-laundering appeal
PARIS — A French political power couple lost their appeal
Wednesday against a money laundering conviction, capping a fall from grace
spurred by accusations they illegally pocketed millions of euros in public
funds while in office.
Patrick and Isabelle Balkany, right-wing politicians who for
years governed the chic Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, were sentenced to
prison terms of five and four years respectively.
But they were not ordered behind bars immediately pending an
appeal to France’s highest court. Patrick Balkany had been released to house
arrest in February because of health problems.
The two had already lost in March an appeal against tax
fraud convictions after they were found guilty of using offshore accounts to
hide at least 13 million euros ($14.4 million) in assets from the tax
authorities, including luxury villas in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh and in
the West Indies.
On Wednesday, the appeals court confirmed the seizure of
assets as well as the payment of one million euros ($1.1 million) in damages,
saying the couple had implemented a system of “persistent fraud”.
Patrick Balkany, 71, who appeared in the Paris courtroom
without his wife, made no comment after the decision.
His lawyer Romain Dieudonne said he had five days to decide
on a further appeal, while his wife’s lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur told reporters
the ruling was “excessive.”
The jail terms handed down last year — extremely rare for
French politicians — were widely heralded as proof that the legal system no
longer shirks from holding the powerful to account.
Patrick Balkany was first elected mayor of Levallois-Perret
in 1983 and also held a seat in parliament for many years.
A larger-than-life figure with a penchant for cigars, he was
a close friend of former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the late rocker Johnny
Hallyday, and was credited with spurring an economic revival in the city.
But critics said the couple was making themselves rich at
the same time, and prosecutors opened an investigation in 2013 after a former
political ally told judges he had deposited millions of euros for the couple in
Swiss bank accounts.
The couple had argued that their wealth was mainly inherited
— Isabelle’s Tunisian Jewish father made a fortune in rubber production while
Patrick’s father, an Auschwitz survivor, founded a luxury clothing chain in
post-war Paris.
Both had already been handed suspended prison sentences in
1996 for the personal use of municipal employees, including one employed as
their private chauffeur.
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