This Thursday, the French Justice Department sentenced award-winning actress Isabelle Adjani to two years in prison, suspended, and a fine of 250,000 euros ($273,000) for tax fraud and money laundering.
Adjani was convicted of declaring a donation of two million euros ($2.18 million) as a loan, pretending to live in Portugal in 2016 and 2017, and transferring 120,000 euros ($130,000) through a US account. undeclared.
The court underlined the “seriousness of the facts” that allowed him to avoid paying 236,000 euros for income tax and 1.2 million euros for property transfer tax.
“These facts demonstrate Isabelle Adjani’s desire to conceal the tax administration” and “seriously undermine the equality of citizens” before the treasury, declared the president of the court. “An actress with obvious talent, she is also a taxpayer,” the judge stated.
Her lawyer Olivier Pardo stressed that Adjani, who always defended her innocence, “did not ask to be judged better” given her notoriety and added that “with confidence and determination, they will present an appeal.”
The trial was held without the actress, whose lawyers had requested a postponement in vain, alleging that she was in the United States and suffered from “an acute pathology incompatible with the plane.”
With five César awards from French cinema for best actress, the 68-year-old performer is one of the most beloved stars in France and thirty years ago she marked French cinema by lending her face to “Queen Margot.”
Adjani claimed that the two million euros were not a gift, but a loan from a friend, the influential Senegalese businessman Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, a member of the International Olympic Committee.
