A third trial for the Balkany couple. Definitely found guilty of money laundering aggravated by tax fraud, Patrick and Isabelle Balkany must be retried on February 9 by the Paris Court of Appeal, which will rule only on the quantum of their sentences, we learned from a judicial source on Wednesday. .
Sentenced to five and four years’ imprisonment
This trial, the date of which was unveiled on Tuesday by BFMTV, follows a decision of the Court of Cassation, which had partially annulled in June 2021 the conviction on appeal of the former LR city councilors of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) .
Patrick and Isabelle Balkany, 73 and 74 years old today, were inflicted in May 2020 respectively five and four years of imprisonment, 100,000 euros in fine and ten years of ineligibility each, for having concealed between 2007 and 2014 some 13 million euros in tax assets, in particular two villas in the Caribbean and in Morocco.
The Court of Appeal had also condemned Patrick Balkany for illegal taking of interests, considering that he had benefited from “personal advantages” in kind within the framework of a large real estate contract of the city.
A third trial must deal only with civil penalties and interests
The Balkanys had lodged an appeal in cassation and, on June 30, the highest court of the judicial order had rejected their appeals concerning the guilt, thus making it final. She nevertheless considered that the Court of Appeal could not pronounce the confiscation of the mill of Cossy, in Giverny (Eure), insofar as the residence belongs to the children of the couple, who only has usufruct.
It also ruled that the court had not sufficiently motivated its decision to order the defendants to pay one million euros in damages to the State.
As a result, she had ordered a third trial which must deal only with civil penalties and interests.
“This trial will confirm that the mill is saved for the Balkany family, which represents a satisfaction shared by Isabelle and Patrick on the one hand and their children on the other, since it is there that they live”, a reacted Wednesday Me Pierre-Olivier Sur, lawyer Isabelle Balkany. It is in this Norman residence that the Balkanys are serving another sentence under electronic bracelet, to three years in prison each, for tax evasion, this final one, in the first part of the same case.
Their bracelet placement was withdrawn from them in December, Mediapart revealed on Monday, due in particular to “a hundred incidents” signaling an exit from their residence outside the scheduled hours. The couple appealed.
