The future of the Balkany in Giverny (Eure) is played out this Monday.
At 1:30 p.m., the Paris Court of Appeal must render a crucial decision, one that could deprive Patrick and Isabelle Balkany of their family home, the Cossy mill.
During an appeal hearing concerning the tax evasion money laundering aspect of the Balkany case, on October 25, the financial prosecutor's office requested the confiscation of the usufruct of the Cossy mill, from which the deposed couple of Levallois.
“Would the State want to rent the mill to the Balkany couple?
Expel them to make a museum?
»
This magnificent 1,000 m2 mill, built on four hectares of land and located a stone's throw from Claude Monet's house, no longer totally belongs to Patrick and Isabelle Balkany who, in 1997, donated the property to their children, while retaining the usufruct.
Alexandre and Vanessa Balkany are therefore bare-owners of the house while their parents live there.
But now, the financial prosecutor wants to confiscate the usufruct of the mill.
An unusual option, which the Advocate General, Serge Roques, considers possible in law.
Even if it is not clear what the State could do with the sole usufruct of the mill, as Patrick Balkany's lawyer, Me Romain Dieudonné, pleaded: "Would the State want to rent the mill to Balkany husband?
Expel them to make a museum?
»
Jail and one million euros in damages also required
Prior to this request for confiscation of the usufruct, the Paris Court of Appeal had initially decided to confiscate the entire property, an additional sentence to the five and four years' imprisonment imposed on Patrick and Isabelle Balkany for money laundering. tax evasion, May 27, 2020. The Balkany spouses had lodged an appeal in cassation.
And on June 30, 2021, the highest court had ruled: the property belonging to the Balkany children in bare ownership, under a regular donation-sharing, justice cannot confiscate the whole.
The decision of the Court of Appeal had therefore been quashed on this point, which led to the cancellation of all the sentences, without the guilt of the Balkany spouses being questioned.
This is how the sentencing component was completely re-discussed during this hearing last October.
Read alsoHospital, cancer and cigarettes… how Isabelle Balkany waited for Patrick's return
In addition to the usufruct of the mill that he wants to see confiscated, the financial prosecutor's office has requested the same prison sentences: five and four years.
And still claims one million euros in damages to be paid to the State for expenses related to the colossal investigations carried out on the planet to track the 13 million hidden from the tax authorities.
“We are at the end of the line”
Patrick and Isabelle Balkany have not planned to travel to hear the decision of the Court of Appeal on Monday.
During the October hearing, only the former mayor appeared before the judges, his wife having indicated that she had "not the strength to face, not justice, but the media, who have been unleashed for years”.
In a letter read at the hearing, Isabelle Balkany made the link between this "outburst" and her suicide attempts, the first before the couple's first trial, in May 2019, the second when the justice had decided to revoke the placement under electronic bracelet of the Balkany spouses to send them to prison.
“I was put back in prison, I spent six months in Fleury, in total isolation.
My wife was in the psychiatric hospital “, had then summed up the former mayor of Levallois, thinner than ever and visibly weakened.
“We are at the end of our rope,” he told the judges.
He who had never imagined such an "end of life", that of an old reclusive couple, with dogs and cats, "without any other prospect than that of death".
