Isabelle Adjani sentenced to 2 years in prison and 250,000 euros fine

Isabelle Adjani is convicted of tax fraud. The Paris criminal court ruled early this afternoon on the fate of the five-César actress, two months after a trial which was held in her absence. She was sentenced to two years' suspended imprisonment and a fine of 250,000 euros for tax evasion and money laundering. The artist was found guilty of having fraudulently domiciled in Portugal in 2016 and 2017, of having passed off a donation of two million euros as a loan and of having transited 120,000 euros via a non-American American account. declared.

“Before being a public figure, she is a citizen subject to duties,” said the financial prosecutors, for whom Isabelle Adjani “sought, quite systematically, to reduce her taxes between 2013 and 2017.” Her lawyers, Messrs Stéphane Babonneau and Olivier Pardo, denounced the “trials of intent” and the “beliefs” of the prosecution, pleading the good faith of the 68-year-old star actress and requesting her release. The trial took place without the actress and singer, known in particular for her roles in “The Murderous Summer” (1983), “Camille Claudel” (1988), “La Reine Margot” (1994) or more recently “Mascarade” (2022).

While she was in the United States, her defense requested the postponement of the hearing, citing in particular an "acute pathology", but the court rejected this request, saying it doubted her "real intention" to come to bar.

The investigation was opened in 2016 after the name of Isabelle Adjani appeared in the Panama Papers, as the owner of a company in the British Virgin Islands. The investigations did not lead to any prosecution on this aspect but other suspicions were brought to light.

Firstly, two million euros transferred in 2013 by Mamadou Diagna NDiaye, an influential businessman, president of the Senegalese National Olympic and Sports Committee and also a member of the International Olympic Committee.

According to the prosecution, it was a “donation disguised” as a loan, which allowed the actress to evade 1.2 million euros in transfer taxes. For the defense, on the other hand, the sum corresponds to a “declared loan” from a “friend”, in a “context of very significant financial distress”.

Isabelle Adjani is also accused of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal in 2016 and 2017, thereby evading 236,000 euros of income tax. Living then between the two countries, she made a “mistake” by being “badly advised”, her lawyers argued.

The actress is finally suspected of money laundering, for having received 119,000 euros from an offshore company into an “undeclared” American bank account, a sum then transferred to Portugal. Money used “to make a donation to the family of his housekeeper, so that they can acquire property in Portugal”, his advice argued.