Sentenced on November 24 by the Versailles criminal court to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 75,000 euros for complicity in attempted blackmail against his former team-mate in the France team Mathieu Valbuena, in the sextape affair, Karim Benzema (34 years old) had to reimburse 230,000 euros in total. A sum including both the 150,000 euros in non-pecuniary damage that he had to pay to the former Marseillais but also the 80,000 euros corresponding to the legal costs due to the civil party.
Contesting this verdict, the Madrid striker and his lawyer Antoine Vey appealed against this conviction, refusing to reimburse the amount requested. Therefore, according to theAFP, the opposing party defending Mathieu Valbuena had this sum seized last Friday via a bailiff from a French bank account of Karim Benzema. According to a source familiar with the matter, this action also caused a partial blocking of this account. Note that for its part, the defense of the Merengues striker had asked to place this sum of 230,000 euros in sequestration pending the appeal trial. “These are logical consequences of the decision to pay immediately. We asked for an amicable payment which never arrived, so we took it to the next level”, justified Me Paul-Albert Iweins, counsel for Mathieu Valbuena, to AFP.