Patrick and Isabelle Balkany will be fixed Monday on their sentences for laundering tax fraud, as well as on a possible confiscation of the house where they reside and on the amount of damages that they will have to pay to the State. The Paris Court of Appeal is ruling once again in the resounding case which earned the former city councilors of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) their political banishment and almost a year in detention for Patrick Balkany.
The justice examined this case in two stages. In a first part, that of tax evasion, the former mayor LR and his ex-first deputy, 74 and 75 years old today, have been definitively sentenced since March 2020 to three years in prison and ten years of ineligibility . The couple was serving this first sentence under an electronic bracelet until this measure was canceled in February 2022 due to numerous shortcomings. The former baron of Hauts-de-Seine, who had spent five months in prison in 2019-2020, was reincarcerated for six months.
A new trial ordered by the Court of Cassation
It is in the second part that Monday’s decision comes into play. In May 2020, the former city councilors were sentenced to five and four years in prison, a fine of 100,000 euros each and, again, a decade of ineligibility, for aggravated laundering of tax fraud and false declaration to the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP). They were 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.
Against this second conviction, the Balkanys appealed to the Court of Cassation which, if it definitively confirmed their guilt, ordered a new trial solely on the amount of the penalties. “I believe that we are both at the end of our rope”, declared at the hearing, on October 25, Patrick Balkany, explaining “pass[er] [son] time between Giverny [et] hospital” since his release from prison in August. “It’s an end that I never imagined, which is very difficult physically and psychologically,” added the former deputy. His wife was absent, apologizing by mail, saying she no longer had “the strength not to face justice but to face the media which for years have been unleashed at each hearing”.
The issue of the confusion of sentences
Monday’s decision has a triple stake for them: first that of the prison sentence which will be imposed on them. The public prosecutor’s office requested confirmation of the sentences handed down in May 2020 (five and four years in prison), but he did not oppose a confusion of sentences with those of the tax evasion component (three years each). This confusion would include the lower penalty in the larger one and thus reduce the total. On the contrary, the defense asked that the penalties be reduced to three years in prison with the hope of completely merging the sentences in the two tracks.
Another point that the Court of Appeal will decide is that of the couple’s current residence in Giverny (Eure). The Cossy mill had been confiscated “in full ownership”, a sanction deemed illegal by the Court of Cassation because the Balkany children are bare owners. This time, the public prosecutor requested the confiscation of the usufruct only, which belongs to the former elected officials – a “disproportionate” decision for the defense lawyers.
Finally, the amount of damages and interest they will have to pay must be calculated again. The state lawyer asked for the same sum as that initially pronounced: one million euros, jointly with the son of the couple, Alexandre Balkany. After Monday’s decision, the Balkanys will have the opportunity to appeal again to the Court of Cassation.