Patrick Balkany is suspected of getting used municipal brokers for private functions whereas he was mayor of Levallois-Perret. – THOMAS SAMSON / AFP
The previous mayor of Levallois-Perret Patrick Balkany, sentenced on enchantment to 5 years in jail for laundering tax fraud, was indicted on suspicion of getting used municipal brokers for private functions whereas he was mayor, the Nanterre prosecutor’s workplace stated on Friday.
Patrick Balkany was indicted Thursday after an interrogation of a number of hours for “embezzlement of public funds” between 2010 and 2015, stated this supply confirming data from the Parisian.
Justice suspects Patrick Balkany of getting used municipal brokers for private functions whereas he was mayor of this rich metropolis within the interior suburbs of Paris. The ex-aedile has at all times claimed his innocence.
In direction of a brand new trial?
The investigation was opened in December 2013. An nameless letter had been despatched to the Nanterre prosecutor’s workplace a couple of months earlier.
Patrick Balkany was elected for the primary time in Levallois (Hauts-de-Seine) in 1983. Together with his spouse Isabelle, they made the previous crimson suburbs held by the Communists into an prosperous residential group the place industrial wastelands have left the place for luxurious residences.
On the finish of Could, the couple had been sentenced on enchantment to five and four years respectively in jail for laundering tax fraud, with out quick imprisonment on account of their state of well being. He was additionally given ten years of ineligibility, with provisional execution of this extra sentence.
They lodged an enchantment towards this final conviction. If their enchantment is rejected, they are going to be summoned earlier than a sentence enforcement decide, who will reply to their potential requests for a modification of the sentence.
If the enchantment succeeds, the couple could possibly be despatched to a brand new appeals courtroom for one more trial.