This is a case on which Patrick Balkany refused to explain for nearly a decade. Accused since 2013 of having diverted three municipal police officers from their mission for personal gain, the former mayor of Levallois-Perret had always remained silent … until his hearing by a judge on July 23, 2020. An appearance particularly stormy, of which “Complément d’Investigation” unveils the content, Thursday, December 2.
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“We can not consider the litigant as shit and ask about facts that date back 10 years”, attack Patrick Balkany, already convicted of tax fraud and money laundering, and who then lives with an electronic bracelet since his release from prison, five months earlier, for health reasons. “It’s about time they left me alone, I was already screwed in the hole, I almost died in prison, I’m 72 years old and you are looking for lice in my head.”
Asked about having made municipal agents work as personal drivers, the former city councilor of Levallois-Perret does not seem to see the problem: “You talk to me as if there were 12 municipal employees and removing one was a disaster. I didn’t force anyone, they were happy to do it.. It opens up opportunities for them, and it teaches them to be more kind and helpful with the locals and the time they have spent with me is not wasted time. Better to be with the boss than with the underling to learn. “
While the magistrate reminds the former mayor that this practice is prohibited, the investigators note that “Mr. Balkany gets up, gets angry and insults the examining magistrate in these words ‘you piss me off, you piss me off with all these questions’.”. After about twenty minutes of interruption, the questioning resumed with a mea-culpa from the person concerned. “I’m sorry about earlier. I’m tired, I’m in pain, I’m afraid to stay on the pool table. I’m upset, apologizes Patrick Balkany. If you’re telling me that I don’t ‘shouldn’t have taken municipal police officers, I would have preferred to have been told that before, at the time and we would have settled that in two minutes. I never read anywhere that it was forbidden. “
But the tension quickly returns when the judge Céline Garrigues tells him to have made other discoveries, namely that the municipal police officers would have also followed the mayor during very private trips, during a dinner in Deauville or even during his holidays in Saint -Martin, in the West Indies … City agents would also have served as a driver for the entire Balkany family, children, grandchildren, and even the nanny. “I didn’t know that justice had nothing else to do, indignant then Patrick Balkany. We spend a whole day talking about this when there are delinquents in the streets, much more serious things, people who are being assaulted … I find that sad, I am sorry. What hypocrisy, this is all lousy. “
As for the other private tasks entrusted to these municipal police officers, namely going to the tobacco shop to buy him cigarettes, the former city councilor assumes : “I ask the driver to go and get some cigarettes, while he’s there messing around, I don’t see where the harm is.” And to conclude his questioning with these words: “Whether you can blame me for scratching on staff, it’s so not me. I’ve spent my life being generous, my life has been good and sadly it’s ending in a nasty way, judgment, prison, I almost died. I’m going to die so don’t break your head. I’m tired I’m sick of it. ”
Not enough to soften the judge who ends up, at the end of this hearing, by indicting him. Twenty-five years after having been convicted for the very first time for having made three municipal agents work in the maintenance of his home, Patrick Balkany should therefore again be tried again for “embezzlement of public funds by a person holding authority public “. Final decision expected before this probable referral to court: the request for the nullity of this new indictment filed by Patrick Balkany will be decided on December 14.