Magistrates investigating a suspected gigantic web of corruption spun around the financial affairs of L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt on Wednesday placed a lawyer in charge of her wealth investments under formal investigation for taking advantage of the 89 year-old matriarch’s diminished mental faculties.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
After he was questioned for 48 hours in police custody in Paris earlier this week, Pascal Wilhelm, a lawyer specialized in fiscal affairs, was taken under gendarmerie escort by train late Wednesday to Bordeaux where magistrates notified him that he was placed under investigation - a French legal status one step short of charges being brought - for ‘abuse of frailty’ while responsible for Bettencourt’s wealth investments in 2011.
The move followed police questioning earlier this week of Stéphane Courbit, a reality TV show and online gambling entrepreneur, whose LOV group received an investment of more than 143 million euros from Bettencourt in May last year, in a deal brokered by Wilhelm and revealed by Mediapart in June.
Wilhelm also acted as a lawyer for Courbit, and for Jean-Marie Messier, the disgraced former CEO of Vivendi-Universal who acted as a consultant in establishing the financial framework for the investment.
Questioned by a magistrate earlier this year, 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, said she could not remember making the investment in Courbit’s company, which produced the French version of Big Brother, nor could she remember who Stéphane Courbit was.
A medical examination ordered by the magistrates in June 2011 found that Bettencourt was suffering from “mixed dementia” and “a moderately severe stage [sic] of Alzheimer’s disease”. The examination report said that the “slow degenerative cerebral process” she is afflicted with began in 2007.
The investigations into the affairs of Bettencourt are based in Bordeaux, where examining magistrates are studying evidence of systematic corruption by the matriarch’s close entourage of advisors, both for their personal gain and for the support of political activities, notably the financing of former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. Indeed, the scope of the case, the extraordinary web of intrigue surrounding it and the regular, very public washing of dirty linen by those involved provide a real-life plot that could lend itself to a TV soap opera.
Wilhelm’s predecessor in the post of wealth manager for Bettencourt, Patrice de Maistre, has been held in preventive detention in a prison near Bordeaux since last March. Maistre is also under investigation for ‘abuse of frailty’, and another two counts of influence peddling and corruption centring on cash withdrawals of 4 million euros from Bettencourt’s secret Swiss bank accounts between February 5th 2007 and December 7th 2009.
The tip of an iceberg of a scandal
Earlier this year, Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign treasurer, former budget and labour minister Eric Woerth, was also placed under formal investigation for “handling" illegal funding of Sarkozy’s campaign and for “influence peddling” in connection with the investigation into Maistre’s activities. Woerth, 56, treasurer of Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party between 2002 and 2010, decorated Maistre with the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest award for civil merit, two months after his wife Florence was hired by Maistre as an investment advisor for Bettencourt.
Wilhelm, who was arrested in a dawn raid by police on Monday at his Paris apartment home, succeeded the disgraced Maistre, for whom he previously acted as legal counsel, at the end of 2010. He was given the position of both wealth manager and legal protector for Bettencourt, for which he was paid 200,000 euros per month. He held the post until October 2011, when the diminished Bettencourt was placed under the guardianship of a magistrate.
The investment last May of 143.7 million euros from her personal fortune in Courbit’s Love Group, organised by Wilhelm and which gave Bettencourt a 20% stake in the company, outraged the L’Oréal heiress’s daughter, and only child, François Bettencourt-Meyers, who has instructed lawyers to attempt to retrieve the sum.
In an interview earlier this month with French daily Le Monde, Courbit, 47, said he had never spoken to Bettencourt about the investment. Courbit was summoned for questioning in Paris on Monday by a specialist police financial crime squad, acting under orders from the Bordeaux magistrates. He was released from custody late Tuesday free of any legal restrictions.
Also questioned by police this week was Bettencourt’s former private nurse, Alain Thurin. French financial daily Les Echos on Thursday reported that Thurin, who was held in police custody for 48 hours beginning Monday morning, is set to inherit 10 million euros under Bettencourt’s will as drawn up by Wilhelm in October 2011.
The magistrates in Bordeaux are involved in several overlapping and complex investigations into the management of Liliane Bettencourt finances, after a series of media revelations, led by Mediapart, of evidence of corruption and which have since developed into a major political scandal.
The whole affair was originally sparked by her donations to a French high-society dandy, celebrity photographer and one-time author, François-Marie Banier, of gifts - including art works and insurance policies - valued at 1 billion euros.
In December 2007, Liliane’s daughter Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, 58, launched legal action against Banier for ‘abuse’ of her mother’s mental frailty, and engaged on a lengthy legal procedure to have her made a ward of court. The move was bitterly opposed by liliane, who said she gave the gifts to Banier of her free will, and accused her daughter of acting in jealousy over her closeness with the socialite.
The family feud ignited into a high-flying scandal in June 2010, when Mediapart exclusively revealed secret recordings of conversations between Liliane Bettencourt and her close entourage of advisors, notably her then-wealth manager Patrice de Maistre, taped by Bettencourt’s butler between 2009 and 2010. The tapes, which were handed over to police, revealed evidence of tax evasion, influence peddling, the suspected illegal funding of Sarkozy's UMP party, and interference in justice proceedings by a French presidential advisor.
Two separate investigations were opened in 2010, but an unseemly dispute between the public prosecutor leading one of them, Philippe Courroye, and the independent magistrate in charge of the other, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, led to a decision to hand the cases to a pole of magistrates in Bordeaux.
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For more on the Bettencourt affair and issues raised in this article, click on the links below:
As Sarkozy leaves office, the Bettencourt affair closes in
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