Is Albert Uderzo, the famed creator of the comic strip character Astérix the Gaul (1), being milked for all he’s worth by his entourage? The 85-year-old cartoonist’s only daughter, Sylvie Boyer de Choizy, has lodged an official complaint for abus de faiblesse, or 'abuse of frailty', and the police are investigating.
Tasked in February 2011 by the public prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to conduct a preliminary investigation, then by letters rogatory from examining magistrate Jean-Michel Bergès in November of that year, the white-collar crime division of the Paris police - the Brigade de Répression de la Délinquance Économique (BRDE) - has uncovered a whole string of disturbing financial goings-on, several of which could involve criminal offences, according to information obtained by Mediapart.
The first thing to intrigue the investigators was a mysterious seven million euro life insurance policy taken out by Albert Uderzo and his wife Ada for an undisclosed beneficiary. Barclays Bank told the police the beneficiary was named in a clause filed with the Uderzos’ new notary, but a search of the latter’s office failed to turn up the document in question.
A second curious discovery was another life insurance policy worth 228,000 euros, initially in favour of Albert Uderzo’s daughter. But in late 2010 it was changed and the beneficiary became the wife of Uderzo’s former plumber Jean-Claude Gouello, who is now his right-hand man.
The notary, Michel Mouchtouris, and the ex-plumber know each other and seem to be very attentive in getting Albert Uderzo and his wife to make certain property transactions and carry out building works, according to the very detailed account Sylvie Boyer de Choizy gave the police.
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1: The Astérix comic strip first appeared in 1959 written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. After Goscinny's death in 1977 Uderzo also took on the role of writer. The books – 34 in all – have been translated into more than 100 languages and have led to animated films and a theme park in France.
Two judges investigate the notary
Notary Michel Mouchtouris, who moved his practice from Le Doubs, a department in eastern France, to Neuilly-sur-Seine, an affluent suburb of Paris, took over from the Uderzo family's previous notary a few years ago. The BRDE investigators have found out that in 2010 he billed the Uderzos 189,502 euros in fees for some services that may not all have been necessary. For example, the police noted that in 2010 he helped the Uderzos set up a non-trading real estate investment company (a Société Civile Immobilière or SCI), for which he charged them 60,185 euros in fees. Yet the couple’s pre-existing marital status provided for joint estate, with all assets to devolve to the surviving spouse, meaning there was no legal or tax advantage to be gained from forming such a company.
The notary also charged 129,317 euros for arranging in late 2010 for Uderzo to donate to the French national library the Bibliothèque Nationale de France some original Astérix printing plates (from the French versions of the books Asterix the Gaul, Asterix and the Golden Sickle and Asterix in Belgium, with an estimated value of 12.5 million euros).
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Another discovery unearthed by the police was that the notary purchased one of Albert Uderzo’s Ferraris, a 2001 Ferrari 360 Modena, for 30,000 euros, even though such a car usually costs much more – they are quoted at 60,000–80,000 euros in most classified ads.
After one of his associates accused him of malpractice, the regional chamber of notaries reported Mouchtouris to the public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre, whereupon his office in Neuilly was searched in January 2011. Examining magistrate Anne Vincent in Nanterre, the district in which Neuilly-sur-Seine is located, was then assigned to carry out a judicial inquiry into allegations of “breach of trust”, “unlawful enrichment”, “forgery of public instruments” and “receipt of stolen goods”.
Bad deals and extravagant expenditure
The police were also puzzled by a series of ill-advised deals that Albert Uderzo agreed to. The comic book artist made his biggest loss in 2005 when he sold his town house in Neuilly for 1,845,000 euros. The white-collar crime investigators discovered that he had bought this property at a much higher price, for the equivalent of 900,000 euros more, from French singer Michel Sardou back in 1992. So although property prices had gone up during this period, improvements had been made to the town house and an estate agent had been instructed to resell it for 2,641,000 euros, the property was actually disposed off for a much lower price. This deal, which went through Albert Uderzo’s right-hand man, Jean-Claude Gouello, has aroused suspicions of under-the-counter payments.
Gouello has managed to make himself indispensable to Uderzo and his wife Ada, gradually moving up in the household ranks from plumber and then private chauffeur to supervisor of renovation and repairs to the family homes and latterly their unofficial property consultant.
According to the police investigation, since 2009 Albert Uderzo has spent some 334,000 euros on improvements to his properties carried out by eight companies, several of which have made payments to a consultancy set up by none other than Jean-Claude Gouello.
But that is not all. According to his daughter, Albert Uderzo (who also created the Tanguy et Laverdure comic book series about two French air force pilots) also spent a million euros – again through his right-hand man – on a rather unusual exhibition. At his holiday home in the Yvelines department, west of Paris, he had a Mirage III supersonic fighter plane displayed in a big made-to-measure hangar, which was fitted out with an automated rail, murals, spotlights and a sound system playing Les Chevaliers du Ciel, the theme song (sung by French pop icon Johnny Hallyday) to an eponymous TV series and film - the English version is entitled ‘Sky Fighters’ - based on Tanguy et Laverdure.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
In her statement to the police, Sylvie Boyer de Choizy pointed out that the opening of the exhibition was attended by Serge Dassault, the billionaire chairman and CEO of the Dassault Group that makes the Mirage fighter planes. She added that this second home in Yvelines and the town house in Neuilly both underwent facelifts on a near-Pharaonic scale, once again through the good offices of Gouello.
Uderzo’s right-hand man also advised his munificent employer on the 2007 and 2008 purchases of a château and then an estate in Brittany for 4.4 million and 5 million euros respectively, according to the police probe. Gouello’s own daughter, moreover, received a 210,000 euro loan from the Uderzos in 2009.
Sale to Hachette and family fallout
During the search of Uderzo’s solicitor’s office, the police found two wills. In the first one, which dates from January 1993, the artist willed that the Astérix series be discontinued after his death and that his own publishing house, Les Éditions Albert René – named after the two original creators - retain all rights in the comic books already published. But a part of these terms are altered in the second will, drawn up in May 2006.
Examining magistrate Jean-Michel Bergès recently ordered a psychological report on Albert Uderzo, according to well-informed sources. For the charge of “exploitation of the infirm” to be proven under French law, the victim has to be vulnerable, in other words of diminished physical or mental capacity. While the putative victims, Albert Uderzo, now 85 years of age, and his wife, now 80, may not be deemed infirm by the experts, the police do believe that several financial transactions the artist agreed to might constitute a “breach of trust” by several members of his entourage, due to “actions carried out without his knowledge” according to a report submitted to the examining magistrate.
Set in the affluent Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, this case of elderly and possibly infirm multi-millionaires who might well have been fleeced by their entourage naturally calls to mind the alleged scams targeting L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. It was in fact her fear of being disinherited that prompted Sylvie Boyer de Choizy to file a complaint, through her lawyer, for “exploitation of the infirm” with the public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre in February 2011. Prosecutor Philippe Courroye entrusted the preliminary investigation at the time to the BRDE, the white-collar crime division of the police. Philippe Courroye was also the prosecutor said to have done all he could to avoid appointing an independent judge in the Bettencourt affair.
But in October 2011, Albert Uderzo’s daughter lodged another official complaint, this time suing for damages as well, which led to a full-blown preliminary investigation and the appointment of Jean-Michel Bergès as examining magistrate on November 8th, 2011.
According to the evidence of his only daughter and his son-in-law, Bernard Boyer de Choizy, both of whom worked for Albert Uderzo for 20 years and were quite close to him before being suddenly sacked in late 2007, a small circle of self-serving “advisers” has formed around the artist and implemented a stratagem to alienate him from his family and drive a wedge between father and daughter.
Sylvie Boyer de Choizy says she is positive that this inner circle persuaded her father, who was ill at the time, to sign off on a deal of considerable proportions: in late 2008, Albert Uderzo decided to sell Les Éditions Albert René, which he had founded in 1979 in order to remain independent, to the French magazine and book publisher Hachette. And this time he agreed to allow the Astérix series to be continued after his death.
According to Sylvie Boyer de Choizy, three men in particular, a recently-deceased lawyer, a director at Les Éditions Albert René and a certified public accountant urged Uderzo to sell. In any case, the police inquiry shows that they made money on the deal.
Albert Uderzo, for his part, has always said he is saddened by his daughter’s taking the matter to court. “The truth is that my daughter and her husband did not accept my removing them from the management of Les Éditions Albert René,” Uderzo wrote to public prosecutor Courroye on March 30th, 2011. Just a family quarrel, in other words, of no great importance.
Contacted by Mediapart, neither Albert Uderzo's lawyers, Pierre Cornut-Gentile and Jean-Alain Michel, nor his daughter's lawyer, Thibault de Montbrial, wished to comment. Michel Mouchtouris's lawyer, Olivier Baratelli, did not respond to calls.
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English version by Eric Rosencrantz
(Editing by Michael Streeter)