The latest news is mixed for the Balkany couple. Indeed, the court ordered, on Monday 9 January 2023, the confiscation of the usufruct of the Cossy mill for a period of thirty years, in Giverny (Eure). A sublime property in the city where the virtuoso Impressionist painter, Claude Monet, lived. Balkany’s spouses currently reside there as “tenants”, their children are bare owners.
Calling this measure “totally ridiculousPatrick Balkany told AFP that he would appeal again on this particular point.I don’t see my children being co-owned with the State (…) all this is grotesque“. Isabelle Balkany’s lawyer, Me Pierre-Olivier Sur, mentioned a”Kafkaesque situation“.”The hypothesis“that the couple is forced to leave the premises”is not current“, said Me Robin Binsard, one of Patrick Balkany’s lawyers, noting, beyond the cassation appeal, the complex determination of”terms“of this confiscation. The State would then become usufructuary of the domain but could not sell it… and then? what to do with the mill? Rent it?
There”final episode of the prison“of the Balkans
In addition to this decision, there is still something positive for the former elected officials of the city of Levallois-Perret (Alts-de-Seine). The Paris Court of Appeal on Monday reduced the sentences of Patrick and Isabelle Balkany for tax evasion laundering and pronounced a confusion of sentences, a decision hailed by the defense as “the end of the prison episode“for the Balkans.
At the end of this new trial, their respective sentences handed down in May 2020 were reduced by six months, sentencing the former elected officials to four and a half years in prison for Patrick and three and a half years in prison for Isabelle. Above all, the court ordered a total confusion of these sentences with those of three years in prison imposed for tax evasion, in the first part of the case. Thus, the weaker penalty is included in the more important one.
“Neither he nor she will go to or return to prison“, Pierre-Olivier Sur made me happy. “This is the end of the prison episode that Patrick Balkany experiencedBinsard greeted me.He will be able to enjoy his old age with his wife“. Remember that it will be the sentencing judge who will determine the conditions under which the couple, aged 74 and 75, will serve these months in prison.
Many fines confirmed
In addition, the Court of Appeal also confirmed the fine of 100,000 euros imposed on each of the Balkans and the ten years of disqualification pronounced against them. But Patrick and Isabelle Balkany were sentenced to pay 400,000 euros in damages to the State, an amount substantially reduced compared to the million euros pronounced in May 2020.
The rulings came after the couple were found guilty of hiding around €13 million in assets from tax authorities between 2007 and 2014, including two lavish villas in the Caribbean and Morocco which have been seized. Patrick Balkany was also convicted of illegal interest taking, the justice considering that he had benefited from it”personal benefits“in kind as part of a large real estate contract for the city of Levallois-Perret, of which he was mayor for a long time (1983 to 1995 then 2001 to 2020).
The pair were serving their sentences with electronic bracelets, until this measure was removed from them in February 2022 due to numerous breaches. Patrick Balkany, who had already spent five months in prison in 2019-2020, was re-incarcerated for six months, from February to August, before being released again. His wife, who was hospitalized for a long time, was not arrested. She will soon be brought before a sentencing judge in Evreux, the prosecutor told AFP.
Source : Pure People
