A judicial investigation into the suspected illegal financing of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election bid has vindicated the testimony of an accountant for L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt who first revealed how vast cash withdrawals from the billionaire’s bank accounts were made shortly before meetings between Bettencourt’s wealth manager and Sarkozy’s campaign treasurer.
The development comes after more than two years after the accountant, Claire Thibout, 54, gave an an exclusive interview to Mediapart in which she disclosed how Bettencourt’s wealth and investment manager, Patrice de Maistre, had asked her, in January 2007, four months before the elections, to help prepare 150,000 euros in cash, drawn from Bettencourt’s bank accounts, which she was told was to be handed to Sarkozy’s campaign treasurer - and future budget minister - Eric Woerth.
Thibout became the target of lawsuits by both Woerth – for calumny – and by Bettencourt, for “theft” of accounts books, which was subsequently revealed to be untrue. At the time, Thibout’s lawyer, Antoine Gillot, denounced a campaign mounted against Thiboult “to try and destabalise her”.
“Not only has she greatly suffered in this affair, but she continues to suffer more than ever, her and her family,” Gillot said when she was summoned for further questioning in the investigation in September 2011. “I’d remind you that she lost her job, that she was fired from the post of accountant she exercised for Madame Bettencourt whereas she had done nothing wrong.”
Sarkozy, who has previously described the illegal funding allegations as “a calumny” and “shameful”, is expected to be questioned by Bordeaux magistrate Jean-Michel Gentil, leading the independent judicial probe, within the coming weeks. In July, Gentil ordered a police search of Sarkozy’s Paris home and offices.
During her interview with Mediapart, published in July 2010, Thibout said 50,000 euros of the total sum were drawn by her from an account with a Paris branch of the BNP bank, while she was understood that the remaining 100,000 euros were to be drawn by Maistre from a secret bank account belonging to Bettencourt in Switzerland.
She has consistently reiterated her account under questioning by police.
Maistre and Woerth have admitted meeting on several occasions during Sarkozy’s 2007 election bid, although they have denied that they were involved in illegal funding of the campaign.
Mediapart can reveal that Judge Gentil has, on record in the formal case file, described the “initial testimony” of Thibout, who served as bookkeeper for the Bettencourt household from 1995 until 2008, as having been confirmed by his investigations.
Woerth, 56, was earlier this year placed under formal investigation – a French legal status one step short of charges being brought – by Gentil for “handling" illegal funding of Sarkozy’s campaign and for “influence peddling”. After Sarkozy’s election in 2007, Woerth was appointed budget minister, and later labour minister. He was also treasurer of Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party between 2002 and 2010.
He remains a Member of Parliament, and mayor, of the town of Chantilly, north of Paris.
Maistre, 63, is also under investigation for ‘abuse of frailty’, and another two counts of influence peddling and corruption, was dismissed as Bettencourt’s wealth manager in December 2010.
Following enquiries carried out in cooperation with the Swiss authorities, Judge Gentil has also discovered that two cash withdrawals were made from Liliane Bettencourt’s Swiss accounts during the 2007 election campaign. Both withdrawals amounted to 400,000 euros. The first was made on February 5th 2007 and the second on April 26th 2007.
René Merckt, a Geneva-based lawyer who for some 30 years managed secret accounts in Switzerland belonging to Bettencourt and her late husband André, has told the investigation that Patrice de Maistre personally ordered the withdrawals.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
“The material fact of the cash handovers is now established,” Gentil told Woerth during questioning of Sarkozy’s former campaign treasurer on September 5th, a transcription of which has been seen by Mediapart. “The origin of this money, in Swiss bank accounts, has also been established, just has also [been established] the opaque nature of these handovers. The involvement of Patrice de Maistre in demanding this money has also been [established] as has also his involvement in the reception of the funds.”
Bettencourt, who has a personal fortune estimated by Forbes in 2011 to total 17 billion euros, making her one of the wealthiest individuals in France and the wealthiest woman in Europe. A medical examination in June 2011 found that she was suffering from “mixed dementia” and “a moderately severe stage [sic] of Alzheimer’s disease”. The examination found that the “slow degenerative cerebral process” she is afflicted with began in 2007.
The illegal political funding investigation is one of several ongoing investigations into a suspected gigantic web of corruption spun around Bettencourt's financial affairs (for more see links to articles at the end of page three).
Among other documents seized as evidence in the case is a diary belonging to Claire Thibout in which she had noted, against the date of January 19th 2007, a “meeting with Patrice de Maistre, 8.30, treasurer, rue des Poissoniers”. Questioned during a confrontation with Maistre in the offices of Judge Gentil on June 8th this year, Thibout told the magistrate that “I noted [the name] treasurer for Woerth”. .
“A few days earlier,” she continued in her statement, “Monsieur de Maistre, who was in the offices of [Bettencourt’s personal wealth management company] Clymène, where I was present, came to me to ask for 150,000 euros. Monsieur de Maistre did not have access to my accounts. I asked him, what is it for? He told me it was for Woerth.”
Thibout was authorised to withdraw up to 50,000 euros per week from Bettencourt’s account with the BNP bank. On Maistre’s behest, she withdrew this amount on January 17th 2007 and handed it to the wealth manager the following day, January 18th. Thibout’s diary referred to a meeting between Maistre and Woerth the next after that, on January 19th.
“Monsieur de Maistre had an appointment with Madame Liliane Bettencourt because Madame Liliane Bettencourt was to hand over money to him,” said Thibout in her statement about events on January 18th 2007. “I handed over the sum of 50,000 euros because I was present at this meeting [sic]. Madame Bettencourt had wanted me to stay in the round salon where Monsieur de Maistre was to be present because she didn’t want it [the cash] to stay in the secretaries’ office. I myself handed the envelope to Madame Liliane Bettencourt who herself handed it over to Monsieur de Maistre and I left.”
During the confrontation between Thibout and Maistre on June 8th, Judge Gentil is recorded as having told Maistre: “The investigations carried out show that you did indeed go to Switzerland at this time, that you met there with [Bettencourt’s Swiss lawyer René] Merkt who was empowered to transfer cash sums from an account opened in Switzerland by Madame Liliane Bettencourt all the way to her [French] home, via a disposal system.”
This last point refers to a complex “compensatory” financial route, by which the sums were issued in banknotes in Paris from the offices of a securities firm, Cofinor, which had previously been credited with the same amount in Switzerland.
Gentil then told Maistre: “You lied when you declared that you had never had knowledge of accounts in Switzerland before 2009, up until you were presented with a table provided by the compensatory firm which records a cash withdrawal on February 5th 2007 of a total of 400,000 euros just a few days before a second appointment you had with Monsieur Eric Woerth [and which was held] under the same conditions as the appointment [with Woerth] on January 18th.”
Maistre replied: “I never gave this money to Woerth.”
Mediapart has also gained access to a transcript of Judge Gentil’s questioning of Eric Woerth on September 5th. The magistrate began by notifying Woerth that the compensatory cash payment system to transfer money from Switzerland to France was established “upon the exclusive request of Patrice de Maistre” and that neither Liliane Bettencourt nor her late husband André, who died in November 2007, had ever used it. Maistre, Gentil told Woerth, had wanted to “make impossible” any tracing of the transfers.
Woerth met with Maistre two days after the latter had collected, via this system, 400,000 euros in cash on February 5th 2007.
Woerth told Gentil: “Admittedly, there was February 5th and February 7th 2007, but this is a set of coincidences. And given the [cash transfer] table you have shown me, there is no other date that would allow any conclusions to be drawn. I have strictly nothing to do with these cash payments.”
Further in his statement, Woerth told the magistrate: “There was not the least amount of cash given to this [Sarkozy 2007 election] campaign.”
Woerth gave an account of how he came into contact with Maistre. “I met Patrice de Maistre in 2006 to talk about the [presidential election] campaign and its financing,” he said in his statement. “I met several times in the context of the [UMP party’s club of its largest donators] Premier Cercle because these met regularly since the launch the campaign. In my position as president of the campaign financing association, I led these meetings, and Patrice de Maistre let it be known he wanted to meet me in order to find out how to take part. He knew a lot of people, he could participate in a financing network. It was quite normal that I meet him.”
Woerth said the two met in a bar, but there was no “suspicious” aspect to this. “We talked of Nicolas Sarkozy’s ideas, I even believe he gave me a note on this subject. That’s all, and I continued to see him. There was not the least amount of cash given to this [Sarkozy 2007 election] campaign.”
Woerth later referred to what has become known as ‘the butler tapes’, published by Mediapart in June 2010. These were secret recordings of conversations between Bettencourt and her senior advisors, held in the billionaire's private office at her town mansion home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, just west of Paris. They were made by her butler, Pascal Bonnefoy, who had placed a recording device behind a chair. Bonnefoy explained that he did so to expose the corruption of Bettencourt’s inner circle of lawyers and managers, including Maistre, and who were taking advantage of her.
“I would just like to remind you that at some point Patrice de Maistre wrote a note to André Bettencourt in which he cites what I said about the legal conditions of the financing of the electoral campaign,” said Woerth. This note is under estimated. The second point is that there were recordings and at no point, despite the freedom of Monsieur de Maistre’s tone, does he refer to this handing over of money.”
The tapes, which were handed over to police, revealed evidence of tax evasion, interference in justice proceedings by a French presidential advisor and influence peddling by Woerth, whose wife Florence was hired by Maistre as an investment advisor for Bettencourt after Woerth had become Sarkozy’s budget minister.
In an extract from the tapes, dated April 23rd 2010, Bettencourt’s wealth manager Patrice de Maistre can be heard explaining to Liliane Bettencourt that Florence Woerth was hired on Eric Woerth’s demand.
In 2008, just months after his wife was hired, Woerth personally led a ceremony to give Maistre the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of civil merit.
During his questioning of Woerth on September 5th, Judge Gentil cited an entry in the diary of high-society socialite François-Marie Banier, a celebrity photographer and one-time author who was close to Liliane Bettencourt. Banier, 65, is also currently under investigation for ‘abuse’ of Bettencourt’s mental frailty to receive gifts including cash, life insurance policies and artworks of a total value of almost one billion euros.
Gentil began his question about Banier’s diary entry by first recording his agreement with Woerth that the so-called ‘butler tapes’ did not include any reference to a cash handover between Maistre and Woerth, nor to the financing of Sarkozy’s campaign. “On the other hand,” Gentil continued, ”François-Marie Banier, writing in April 2007, cited a conversation he had had with Madame Liliane Bettencourt, that Nicolas Sarkozy had again asked for money, that she gave it, and that she asked herself whether Patrice de Maistre hand handed it over. This conversation [was] transcribed by François-Marie Banier on April 26th 2007 because he [Banier] did indeed have an appointment with Madame Liliane Bettencourt that evening. But it is established that this appointment was just after the delivery on April 26th 2007 of the 400,000 euros in cash [from Bettencourt’s Swiss accounts] and that Patrice de Maistre was present when it was delivered. Therefore, there is a person who, indirectly, refers to a possible illegal financing of an electoral campaign, and you were in charge of the financing as you [Woerth] have indicated.”
Woerth replied: “I have no explanation to offer, I have no idea about this [diary entry], it doesn’t involve me. There is no illegal financing of Monsieur Sarkozy’s campaign.”
Gentil then asked him: “If there is no illegal financing, we could perhaps deduce from François-Marie Banier’s note that there was a handover [of cash] for the personal benefit of Monsieur Sarkozy. What do you think about this?"
Woerth answererd : “What do you want me to reply ? It is completely speculative. This campaign was legally financed, as I have indicated to you.”
Mediapart has learnt that Gentil is currently investigating the motive behind the transfer from Bettencourt’s Swiss accounts to Paris, organized by Maistre, of 1 million euros in December 2008. The magistrate has established that weeks earlier, then-President Sarkozy met with Liliane Bettencourt at his presidential offices, the Elysée Palace, on November 5th 2008, followed by a separate meeting at the Elysée with Patrice de Maistre, on November 13th.
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For more on the illegal political funding case and other investigations into the financial affairs of Liliane Bettencourt, click on the links below:
Judge links L'Oréal heiress cash withdrawals to Sarkozy campaign funding
Sarkozy campaign treasurer under investigation for illegal funding, influence peddling
L'Oréal heiress ordered to pay 77.7 million euros after tax scam probe
Behind the bettencourt affair: the battle for L'Oréal
A scandal too far: Bettencourt magistrate is disowned
French prosecutor in Bettencourt affair illegally spied journalists' phone calls
The eerie plot penned by L'Oréal family scandal dandy in 1971
Dinners, cash and Sarkozy: what Bettencourt's accountant told Mediapart
Bettencourt butler bites back: 'I saw L'Oréal family destroyed'
Bettencourt battle back after L'Oréal heiress signs away 143 million euros
The political guard watching over L'Oréal
Bettencourt chauffeur adds to Sarkozy campaign fund allegations
Bettencourt tapes stolen in mystery break-ins targetting Mediapart, Le Point and Le Monde
French interior minister drops libel action against Mediapart
Why we need a strong media in France
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English version: Graham Tearse