The Paris Court of Appeal has just ruled. The magistrates have decided to confiscate from Patrick and Isabelle Balkany the Cossy mill, in Giverny (Eure), their home for around forty years.
The Balkany spouses should however enjoy their mill for some time yet. They have five days to appeal in cassation and contest the confiscation of the usufruct, which they should not fail to do. In addition, it will be necessary to assess the usufruct of the mill before the State recovers it, which promises other legal disputes. It is therefore impossible at this stage to conclude that the spouses are forced to pack their bags.
This was the whole point of the judgment rendered on Monday by the magistrates, who ruled on the sentences to be imposed on the former spouses of Levallois-Perret in the laundering of tax fraud in the Balkany affair: the concealment in the tax of some 13 million euros, invested in particular in the villa Pamplemousse, in the West Indies, and a riad in Marrakech (Morocco). Even if the Balkany spouses have always denied having acquired this luxurious Moroccan property.
Their guilt has been judicially acquired since the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal rendered in May 2020. But in addition to the five and four years of imprisonment respectively inflicted on Patrick and Isabelle Balkany, the judges had pronounced additional sentences, including the confiscation of the Cossy mill.
Damages lowered to 400,000 euros
The couple then turned to the Court of Cassation to challenge, in particular, this confiscation of their house, which belongs in bare ownership to their children, under a regular donation-sharing which dates back to 1997. de Levallois are only the usufructuaries. The highest court had given them reason, considering that the whole of the property could not be confiscated, since such a decision would deprive the children of their right of bare owners.
Thus, on October 25, a new hearing was held before the Paris Court of Appeal to re-examine all the sentences, because the fact of breaking part of the sentences results in the cancellation of these in their entirety. and therefore, their re-examination. During this hearing, only Patrick Balkany appeared before the judges.
He appeared damaged, testifying to his own collapse as well as that of his wife, Isabelle, who made two suicide attempts and suffers from lung cancer. “We are both at the end of our ropes, summed up the deposed baron of Levallois and Hauts-de-Seine. It’s the end that I didn’t imagine, very difficult physically and psychologically. I’m already half dead in my head. »
Beyond the confiscation of the usufruct of the mill, the Court of Appeal also ruled on the million euros in damages claimed by the State to compensate for the costs incurred during the extensive investigations carried out in Singapore. in Panama, from Lichtenstein to the Virgin Islands via Hong Kong and Marrakech. “There is a need to compensate the mobilization of the State”, had pleaded Me Xavier Normand-Bodard, lawyer for the legal agent of the Treasury.
But the state “does not justify” expenses, according to Me Sofia Bougrine, lawyer for Isabelle Balkany with Me Pierre-Olivier Sur. This Monday, the Court of Appeal reduced the amount to 400,000 euros.
“It’s the end of the prison episode”
The prison sentences, they are also reduced, slightly, but they are also and above all confused with those that the Court of Appeal has already pronounced against the Balkany spouses for tax evasion: three years firm for each. It is this sentence that they partly served under an electronic bracelet from March 2021, before the justice decided to revoke the arrangement under a bracelet, which de facto sent Patrick and Isabelle Balkany behind bars.
Only the former mayor of Levallois was then imprisoned, his wife having swallowed tablets as soon as the decision was rendered. “It was the fear of confinement,” she confided without lingering a few months ago.
“We will be able to reassure Isabelle Balkany: she will not go to prison”, welcomes Me Pierre-Olivier Sur at the end of the hearing. “It’s the end of the prison episode,” adds Me Robin Binsard, one of Patrick Balkany’s lawyers.