In a case with echoes of the L'Oréal scandal that engulfed his administration this summer, the French government is again accused of turning a blind eye to alleged tax evasion linked to one of the president's friends and fund-raisers.
A criminal complaint for forgery, breach of trust and money-laundering made formally to French prosecutors last week is intended to provoke a legal investigation into the affairs of the Wildenstein family, which holds one of the world's most celebrated art collections.
The head of the family is Guy Wildenstein, who co-founded Mr Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement party and is referred to by the president as "mon ami Guy". He has been accused of hiding a large part of the family fortune from the taxman in offshore trusts.
New claims in this second damaging affair will be disclosed by the investigative news website, Mediapart.
Two months ago Mediapart exposed secret tapes that turned the legal battle over the L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt's inheritance into a political scandal over tax evasion and alleged illegal party donations.
The Bettencourt affair embroiled the then budget minister Eric Woerth, who is the UMP party treasurer and currently the minister pushing through Mr Sarkozy's controversial pension reforms. An investigation is under way into claims that he received illegal party donations in cash from Mrs Bettencourt while she was hiding part of her fortune in Swiss bank accounts.
Mr Woerth, who is a friend of Mr Wildenstein, is also caught up in the latest scandal. Mediapart's new revelations and the controversy they will provoke will be a severe blow to Mr Sarkozy, who has struggled to overcome accusations of cronyism at a time of international criticism over France's expulsion of nearly 1,000 Roma and mass street protests at home over plans to raise the retirement age.
A senior investigative journalist at Mediapart said: "There is a total conflict of interests once again with the involvement of Mr Woerth and his successor, who are supposed to be fighting fiscal fraud but have not ever responded to letters written to them about this."
As with the Bettencourt affair, the Wildenstein controversy started as a family dispute over inheritance: Mrs Bettencourt upset her only daughter by giving nearly Eur 1 billion (£830 million) in gifts to a younger photographer friend; Mr Wildenstein upset his stepmother by allegedly hiding part of what she claims is her inheritance.
In the art world, the name Wildenstein represents one of the richest dynasties and proprietors of what one expert described as an "Aladdin's cave" of masterpieces. In more popular circles it represents the madness of vanity illustrated by Jocelyn "Bride of" Wildenstein, once married to Guy Wildenstein's late brother Alex and whose features testify to the perils of plastic surgery.
The family fell apart after Daniel Wildenstein, one of the world's greatest art collectors and dealers, died in 2001. He left a second wife Sylvia, 76, who has spent most the past decade trying to establish the true value of her dead husband's fortune.
"My two stepsons told me my husband was ruined and I had to give up my inheritance or risk having major problems with the taxman in France. I believed them, I signed the papers they gave me," she told French journalists.
Officially, Daniel Wildenstein left about 30 masterpieces worth Eur 42 million (£35 million), a legacy his widow claims is "wildly underestimated".
She admits she has no idea how much her husband was worth. "With Daniel I never had a bank account, I never used a credit card; I didn't need to," she said.
Far from being bankrupt, Daniel Wildenstein left property some have estimated as worth around Eur 4 billion (£3.3 billion) – a figure disputed by his sons – "including 10,000 masterpieces, among them works by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Pissaro, Picasso, and a 75,000-acre farm in Kenya where Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford was filmed.
Much of this was in the form of trusts which were not included as part of his personal estate.
The French courts have recognised that much of the Wildenstein fortune is held in offshore trusts.
Mrs Wildenstein's lawyer says she wrote to the tax authorities on April 7, May 4 and June 9 last year. Receiving no reply, she then wrote twice to both the director general for public finance Philippe Parini and the former budget minister Mr Woerth, on June 12 and September 7, 2009. There was no reply.
In these letters she detailed her suspicions over the existence of several trusts in tax havens where she said the immense fortune of the Wildenstein family was being held.
Her lawyer, Claude Dumont-Beghi, has spent years travelling the world trying to uncover the Wildenstein family assets, following an earlier French court ruling that Mrs Wildenstein was entitled to half of her late husband's personal estate.
Mr Wildenstein's lawyer did not respond to requests by The Sunday Telegraph for comment.
source: Sarkozy faces new sleaze claims over second billionaire donor - Telegraph
A criminal complaint for forgery, breach of trust and money-laundering made formally to French prosecutors last week is intended to provoke a legal investigation into the affairs of the Wildenstein family, which holds one of the world's most celebrated art collections.
The head of the family is Guy Wildenstein, who co-founded Mr Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement party and is referred to by the president as "mon ami Guy". He has been accused of hiding a large part of the family fortune from the taxman in offshore trusts.
New claims in this second damaging affair will be disclosed by the investigative news website, Mediapart.
Two months ago Mediapart exposed secret tapes that turned the legal battle over the L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt's inheritance into a political scandal over tax evasion and alleged illegal party donations.
The Bettencourt affair embroiled the then budget minister Eric Woerth, who is the UMP party treasurer and currently the minister pushing through Mr Sarkozy's controversial pension reforms. An investigation is under way into claims that he received illegal party donations in cash from Mrs Bettencourt while she was hiding part of her fortune in Swiss bank accounts.
Mr Woerth, who is a friend of Mr Wildenstein, is also caught up in the latest scandal. Mediapart's new revelations and the controversy they will provoke will be a severe blow to Mr Sarkozy, who has struggled to overcome accusations of cronyism at a time of international criticism over France's expulsion of nearly 1,000 Roma and mass street protests at home over plans to raise the retirement age.
A senior investigative journalist at Mediapart said: "There is a total conflict of interests once again with the involvement of Mr Woerth and his successor, who are supposed to be fighting fiscal fraud but have not ever responded to letters written to them about this."
As with the Bettencourt affair, the Wildenstein controversy started as a family dispute over inheritance: Mrs Bettencourt upset her only daughter by giving nearly Eur 1 billion (£830 million) in gifts to a younger photographer friend; Mr Wildenstein upset his stepmother by allegedly hiding part of what she claims is her inheritance.
In the art world, the name Wildenstein represents one of the richest dynasties and proprietors of what one expert described as an "Aladdin's cave" of masterpieces. In more popular circles it represents the madness of vanity illustrated by Jocelyn "Bride of" Wildenstein, once married to Guy Wildenstein's late brother Alex and whose features testify to the perils of plastic surgery.
The family fell apart after Daniel Wildenstein, one of the world's greatest art collectors and dealers, died in 2001. He left a second wife Sylvia, 76, who has spent most the past decade trying to establish the true value of her dead husband's fortune.
"My two stepsons told me my husband was ruined and I had to give up my inheritance or risk having major problems with the taxman in France. I believed them, I signed the papers they gave me," she told French journalists.
Officially, Daniel Wildenstein left about 30 masterpieces worth Eur 42 million (£35 million), a legacy his widow claims is "wildly underestimated".
She admits she has no idea how much her husband was worth. "With Daniel I never had a bank account, I never used a credit card; I didn't need to," she said.
Far from being bankrupt, Daniel Wildenstein left property some have estimated as worth around Eur 4 billion (£3.3 billion) – a figure disputed by his sons – "including 10,000 masterpieces, among them works by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Pissaro, Picasso, and a 75,000-acre farm in Kenya where Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford was filmed.
Much of this was in the form of trusts which were not included as part of his personal estate.
The French courts have recognised that much of the Wildenstein fortune is held in offshore trusts.
Mrs Wildenstein's lawyer says she wrote to the tax authorities on April 7, May 4 and June 9 last year. Receiving no reply, she then wrote twice to both the director general for public finance Philippe Parini and the former budget minister Mr Woerth, on June 12 and September 7, 2009. There was no reply.
In these letters she detailed her suspicions over the existence of several trusts in tax havens where she said the immense fortune of the Wildenstein family was being held.
Her lawyer, Claude Dumont-Beghi, has spent years travelling the world trying to uncover the Wildenstein family assets, following an earlier French court ruling that Mrs Wildenstein was entitled to half of her late husband's personal estate.
Mr Wildenstein's lawyer did not respond to requests by The Sunday Telegraph for comment.
source: Sarkozy faces new sleaze claims over second billionaire donor - Telegraph
