Isabelle Adjani was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and fined €250,000 for tax fraud in a Paris court on Thursday.
Adjani, one of France’s most revered female actors, was found guilty of setting up a permanent residence in Portugal between 2016 and 2017 to avoid paying €236,000 in taxes, depositing €120,000 in a US account without declaring it and disguising a €2 million donation as a loan, according to AFP.
Adjani, an Oscar nominee for “Camille Claudel” and “The Story of Adele H.,” has denied the charges and will appeal, her lawyer Olivier Pardo told Variety.
Back in October, financial prosecutors had asked for an 18-month suspended sentence on top of a €250,000 fine, but the judges gave Adjani a heavier sentence.
“We are dismayed by this verdict,” Pardo said. “Isabelle Adjani was unable to attend the trial and we had asked for it to be postponed so that she could be heard, but they wouldn’t allow it. They’re persecuting her relentlessly.
The tax fraud investigation was launched in 2016, after Adjani’s name appeared in the Panama Papers.
Since October 2020, Adjani has also been under formal investigation for alleged fraud involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in business expenses. The investigation stemmed from a police complaint filed by a former business associate in 2015.
Despite the ongoing legal turmoil, Adjani has seen her career flourish in recent years with a number of roles. She has just starred as a con woman in Melanie Laurent’s hit Netflix heist movie ‘Voleuses’. She also had the lead role in Francois Ozon’s “Petra von Kant,” which opened the Berlin Film Festival in 2022.
