The former LR mayor of Levallois-Perret, Patrick Balkany, was quietly released from prison this Friday morning early, according to those around him. He had been imprisoned for several months, in Fleury-Mérogis, in Essonne, for tax evasion. On Thursday, the Paris Court of Appeal granted his request for sentence adjustment. He was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison for tax evasion. His wife Isabelle tweeted in the morning: “WEATHER ALERT Vigilance Orange Eure and #Levallois Notice of strong storm of friendship, benevolence, affection, tenderness and hugs…”, followed by many emoticons. Patrick Balkany has indeed joined his house in Giverny in the Eure, in Normandy.
The former Baron des Hauts-de-Seine and his wife Isabelle Balkany had been found guilty at first instance and then on appeal of tax evasion between 2009 and 2015. More specifically, they are accused of not having paid tax on the fortune between 2010 and 2014, of having paid a lower amount in 2015, as well as of having paid a largely undervalued income tax between 2009 and 2014. Patrick Balkany had been imprisoned in 2019 upon his conviction, then released in February 2020 for health reasons, then placed under an electronic bracelet in March 2021. He had been reincarcerated in February for not having respected the obligations related to wearing his electronic bracelet.
His wife, whose obligation of the electronic bracelet had also been revoked, had been hospitalized after having, according to her husband, made a suicide attempt in February. She returned to her home on June 4 pending a possible summons to court. In addition to this conviction for tax evasion, Patrick Balkany and Isabelle Balkany were also definitively sentenced, in June 2021, for aggravated money laundering of tax evasion and for illegal taking of interest. Only the question of the quantum of the sentence remains pending, with a new trial scheduled for next October.