The legendary actress was not there. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) on Thursday in Paris requested an 18-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 250,000 euros against the five-César actress Isabelle Adjani, tried in her absence for aggravated tax fraud and money laundering. The 68-year-old artist, who maintains his innocence, is suspected of having concealed a loan donation in 2013 and of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal in 2016 and 2017, as well as of having transferred a sum in 2014 via United States.
At the beginning of the afternoon, her defense asked for the trial to be postponed, arguing that she “wanted to explain herself” in court but that she had not been able to take the plane from the United States to cause of “an acute pathology”. The court rejected this request, finding “that it was not sufficiently established that Ms. Adjani really intended to be present”. The trial then resumed around 5 p.m. and took place without her.
Isabelle Adjani “is a citizen subject to duties”
“The name of Isabelle Adjani ultimately matters little. His celebrity was neither an additional reason nor an obstacle to prosecution,” declared the financial prosecutor at the start of his indictment. “Before being a public figure, she is a citizen subject to duties,” he continued. “For years, with the assistance of professionals, she sought to reduce her tax burden as much as possible.”
For the prosecution, she had her main home, her professional activity and her centers of activity in France and not in Portugal in 2016 and 2017, and she should have paid 236,000 euros in income tax in France. . Likewise, according to the PNF, the transfer in 2013 of two million euros from the Senegalese businessman and member of the International Olympic Committee Mamadou Diagna NDiaye was not a loan, but a “disguised donation” .
The loan contract signed between them, which included neither interest nor guarantee, was “fictitious” for the prosecution, who believe that this allowed the actress to evade 1.2 million euros in transfer taxes. . Finally, the PNF requested that she be found guilty of money laundering for having transferred 119,000 euros from a company in Hong Kong to an “undeclared” American bank account, then transferred to the mother of a relative in Portugal for the purchase of real estate. The defense must plead for acquittal in the evening.