Trial of L’Oreal Heiress Stayed, Pending Investigation of Tapes

July 2nd, 2010 - 12:43 am ICT by Angela Kaye Mason  

June 1 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Judges in France have postponed the trial of the richest woman in the country, since the discovery of new evidence in a case deciding whether or not she was a victim to a scheme when she gave $1.2 billion in gifts to a “friend”.

The government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy was embarrassed, and the trial was stayed when the tapes portraying conversations between the wife of the prominent government minister and her advisers suggested that the L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt was dogging taxes.

The butler recorded the conversations behind the heiress’s back. A photographer by the name of Francois-Marie Banier was arrested and stands accused of exploitation, a crime which could land him three years in prison. The trial was postponed Thursday, however, once the new evidence was revealed.

The only child of Bettencourt, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers has filed a private prosecution against the photographer last year,claiming that he had manipulated her mother’s illness to get the artwork, cash, and other gifts. Her mother was against the trial.

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