The lawyer admitted to the charges on Tuesday at the hearing, specifically money laundering and complicity in tax fraud. His clients were a wealthy couple who own commercial premises and manage over a hundred companies.
He accepted the sentence negotiated between his lawyers and the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF): a one-year suspended prison sentence, an 18-month ban on practising law, 14 months of which were suspended, and a €50,000 fine. A judge approved this sentence.
During the hearing, prosecutor Aurélien Létocart stressed that the investigation, entrusted to the National Brigade for the Repression of Fiscal Delinquency (BNRDF) and triggered by a complaint from the tax authorities in 2012, had uncovered a vast tax fraud.
The couple in question, who are still subject of a preliminary investigation, found themselves at the head of an informal group of several hundred companies, which enabled them to evade taxes in France through the intermediary of two legal professionals: their lawyer and a deceased notary who had lost their deontological references.
According to the prosecution, the lawyer refrained from verifying the validity of the claims of his client, who went out of his way not to let assets in French companies be absorbed by Luxembourg companies. However, he did not personally enrich himself.
According to the lawyer’s own lawyer, Kiril Bougartchev, he was taken advantage of by a client who had not told him the whole truth. The defendant was a 27-year-old collaborator when his firm entrusted him with the clients in 2007.
The lawyer explained that his client was extremely indebted and that his objective was to repay his creditors.
The couple in question are said to have evaded between 10 and 20 million euros in tax over the period. Their companies were failing but artificially maintained to obtain loans and invest in real estate.
