Patrick Balkany should have been free in less than 48 hours. He was to be granted conditional release and was to leave Fleury-Mérogis prison (Essonne) on Wednesday June 1, according to the decision of the Evry sentence enforcement judge consulted on Monday by AFP. The former mayor of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) was taken into custody on February 7. After spending five months in detention for tax evasion, then being released on an electronic bracelet for health reasons, he returned to prison due to numerous breaches of his obligations, according to justice. The Evry sentence enforcement court granted this conditional release, without an electronic bracelet. Yes, but now, yet another twist has come to undermine this happy news!
On the evening of Monday, the Evry prosecution appealed for the conditional release, without an electronic bracelet, of Patrick Balkany. This therefore implies the continued detention of the 73-year-old man. “The appeal of the public prosecutor’s office is suspensive until the chamber for the application of sentences of the Paris Court of Appeal rules, within the maximum period of two months.“, said the prosecutor of Evry Caroline Nisand in a press release. Until this new decision, Patrick Balkany remains incarcerated in Fleury-Merogis prison.
His wife Isabelle still hospitalized after a suicide attempt, it was alone that Patrick Balkany had to taste the joys of freedom in his mansion in Giverny in the Eure. If such a decision had been taken by the sentence enforcement judge, it was because the latter had considered that Mr. Balkany had “set up, together with his wife, since February, monthly payments totaling 1,300 euros for the purpose of settling the sums due to the tax authorities for offenses committed“. He nevertheless had to respond to summonses from the Evreux sentence enforcement judge and receive visits from the prison integration and probation service if the Evry prosecution does not appeal in the meantime. His freedom, Patrick Balkany maybe find it again in two months…
The Balkany spouses had been found guilty of not having paid wealth tax between 2010 and 2015 and of having paid a grossly undervalued income tax between 2009 and 2014, for an estimated total of 4 million euros. euros of sums evaded. A few weeks after his imprisonment, the former LR mayor of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) had filed a request for parole through his lawyers in early April. The end of Patrick Balkany’s sentence is set for April 21, 2023. Since February, he has served half of his sentence and will have served two-thirds of his sentence from July 3.