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L'Oreal Heiress Bettencourt `Shocked' at Police Search of Home Near Paris
L’Oreal SA heiress Liliane Bettencourt was “shocked” by a police search of her home today, part of a judge’s probe into whether she was manipulated into giving a friend gifts worth 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion).
Police forced open locks on her safes and rifled through her staff’s rooms, France’s richest woman said today in an e- mailed statement.
“I am indignant and shocked, hurt and saddened to see my private life put on display and violated anew,” she said in the statement. Authorities contacted her this morning about searching her home in Neuilly, near Paris, and she said she agreed, “having absolutely nothing to hide.”
The judge supervising the probe is looking into a complaint by Bettencourt’s only child, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, over gifts including art, real estate and insurance policies her mother gave to photographer and author Francois-Marie Banier. The family dispute spawned a French political scandal when recordings of conversations between Bettencourt and friends and advisers prompted inquiries into claims of campaign-finance law breaches when President Nicolas Sarkozy sought election in 2007.
A spokeswoman for the local prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the search, which was at least the third visit to Bettencourt’s home by authorities in relation to the case. The heiress, 87, has opposed her daughter’s action, insisting she is of sound mind and gave the gifts freely.
‘Humiliations’
“The way in which my daughter has dug into this and this judge is behaving proves they both believe I am strong enough to handle their humiliations and their attacks,” she said in today’s statement, calling herself their “victim.”
Judge Isabelle Desprez-Prevost ordered the search as she awaits a Sept. 14 decision by the appeals court in Versailles on whether she may continue her investigation into the complaint. Desprez-Prevost opened her inquiry July 1, putting the trial she was judging on hold indefinitely to look into revelations from the recordings, made secretly by Bettencourt’s former butler.
At least four other investigations have begun since the release of the recordings into allegations including campaign donations and influence peddling.
Police previously questioned Bettencourt July 26 and searched her home earlier that month. Meyers’s home and Banier’s home have also been searched, as have offices of Bettencourt’s financial advisers.
Separately, magazine Paris Match said today that the Bank of France’s Prudential Control Authority has for several months been investigating whether an unnamed French bank where Bettencourt has an account failed to adequately monitor her withdrawals.
A spokeswoman for the Bank of France declined to comment on the report. Bettencourt’s lawyer and spokeswoman didn’t return calls for comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Smith in Paris at hsmith26@bloomberg.net
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