BALKANY. Patrick Balkany, former mayor of Levallois-Perret, has been in prison since February 7, 2022 for tax evasion. The Paris Court of Appeal will decide, Thursday, August 4, if the politician obtains a conditional release, if he is placed under an electronic bracelet or if he is kept in prison.
[Mis à jour le 3 août 2022 à 17h20] Thursday August 4, Patrick Balkany will know if he can get out of prison. His last request for parole dates from June 30, 2022 and had been examined by the Paris Court of Appeal. The judges reserved their decision. Three scenarios are possible for Patrick Balkany on Thursday. The judges can either decide to grant him parole, or adjust his sentence and place him on an electronic bracelet, or let him serve the end of his sentence for tax evasion until the spring of 2023. During his hearing on June 30, Patrick Balkany’s lawyers had advanced his fragile state of health to justify the request for release. They argue that their client is not a danger to society. The former mayor of Levallois-Perret also wishes to join his wife Isabelle Balkany, who had attempted suicide and had lung surgery.
Patrick Balkany and his wife were convicted of failing to pay wealth tax between 2010 and 2015 and of understating their income tax between 2009 and 2014. Patrick Balkany was imprisoned on February 7, 2022 after his conviction for tax evasion. Before that, he had already been in prison between September 2019 and February 2020. He had been able to leave in view of his state of health. His wife, Isabelle Balkany, had not been imprisoned after a suicide attempt on February 3, 2022. For several years, Patrick and Isabelle Balkany had been placed under an electronic bracelet. The former mayor of Levallois-Perret and his ex-first deputy had been sentenced, in September 2019, for tax evasion, to three years in prison and ten years of ineligibility. The revocation of the placement under an electronic bracelet had been requested due to a hundred incidents, including non-compliance with exit times.
Are the Balkany spouses involved in other affairs?
The placement under electronic bracelet of Patrick and Isabelle Balkany, decided in February 2021, had been revoked in February 2022 after numerous shortcomings on the part of the couple. Justice blamed them for several, with a “hundred of incidents”. In a judgment, the Rouen Court of Appeal pointed out that the spouses “never accepted the constraints inherent in home detention under electronic surveillance”. In addition, she underlines that Patrick and Isabelle Balkany had, with regard to the staff of the prison administration or the sentence enforcement judge, “[une] attitude and [des] vehement or ironic remarks, sometimes outrageous, even outrageous”. The decision to revoke the house arrest was pronounced on February 3, 2022. It implied, in fact, the incarceration of the two spouses. However, only Patrick Balkany entered the Fleury-Mérogis prison, Isabelle Balkany having attempted suicide when the decision was announced.
The couple’s tax fraud case was studied in two stages. The Balkany spouses have yet to know their sentence for “tax evasion laundering”. They were found guilty of having concealed, between 2007 and 2014, around 13 million euros in tax assets, including two villas in the Caribbean and Morocco. The trial for this second part of the case has been adjourned to October 25, 2022. In addition to this conviction for tax evasion, Patrick Balkany was indicted in February 2021 for abuse of corporate assets, embezzlement of public funds and taking illegal interest. He is suspected of having made office buildings available to his son-in-law, without payment of rent. In December 2021, his indictment for embezzlement of public funds was also confirmed in the “drivers” case for which he is accused of having used municipal agents as private drivers.