Paris — After a month-long trial, eight of the ten people accused of robbing billionaire celebrity Kim Kardashian in Paris in 2016 were found guilty on Friday.
The ringleader and seven other heist participants were found guilty, but they will not face prison time. The court acquitted two defendants accused of spreading information about Kardashian’s whereabouts.
The ringleader, Aomar Aït Khedache, 69, received the harshest sentence of eight years imprisonment. Five of those years are suspended sentences. He will not be detained again because he has already served time in jail.
Yunis Abbas, Didier Dubreucq, and Marc-Alexandre Boyer were all sentenced to seven years in prison, five of which were suspended. They, like Khedache, will not return to detention. Dubreucq, 69, did not attend the sentencing because he is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
Prosecutors recommended that the four be sentenced to ten years in prison. The chief judge, David De Pas, stated that the defendants’ ages — the oldest is 79, while others are in their 60s and 70s — influenced the court’s decision not to impose harsher sentences that would have sent them to jail. Boyer, 35, is the sole young person involved in the crime.
“It would have been unjust to take you to prison this evening,” De Pas replied. He stated that the nine years between the robbery and the trial were also taken into account during the sentencing.
Nonetheless, he claimed that Kardashian had been traumatized by the robbery at her hotel.
“You caused harm, even if you didn’t strike physically and blood was not spilt,” De Pas told the audience. “You caused fear.”
In October 2016, Kardashian visited Paris for Fashion Week and stayed at a discreet hotel in the city center. In an emotional four-and-a-half-hour testimony ten days ago, she told the Paris court that she “absolutely” believed she was going to be “raped and killed” when one of the armed, masked robbers grabbed her leg and pulled her toward him as she lay on her bed in only a bathrobe.
She was bound with zip ties and duct tape and locked in the bathroom while the robbers searched her room for the expensive jewelry they claimed to have seen on social media posts by a woman they only knew as “the rapper’s wife” — a reference to her then-husband Kanye West.
Kardashian, who did not attend the sentencing, said in a statement that she was “deeply grateful to the French authorities for pursuing justice” in the case. Kardashian’s lawyers told the court that the reality star was “satisfied” with the verdict.
“The crime was the most terrifying experience of my life, leaving a lasting impact on me and my family,” she wrote in her statement. “While I’ll never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and accountability and pray for healing for all.”
Because of their ages, the ten accused were dubbed les papys braqueurs, or the “Grandpa robbers,” in France. Some people arrived in court wearing orthopedic shoes, and Khedache, who is now deaf and largely mute, leaned on a cane. Khedache and Abbas, who had previously admitted their involvement in the robbery, apologized to Kardashian and the court before being sentenced and convicted.
In a scribbled note to the court, Khedache apologized “a thousand times.” He also apologized to his 38-year-old son, Harminy Aït Khedache, who drove for the gang that night. Khedache’s DNA, discovered on the bands used to bind Kardashian, was a significant breakthrough in the case. Wiretaps caught him giving orders, recruiting accomplices, and planning to sell the diamonds in Belgium. The only piece of jewelry recovered was a diamond-encrusted cross that had been dropped during the escape.
Abbas, 71, who had previously apologized directly to Kardashian for contributing to the trauma she claims she experiences on a daily basis, told the court: “All I have to say is to apologize to you again; I’m sorry for what I may have done.”
He was suspected of being the gang’s lookout stationed outside the luxury residence known as the No Name Hotel.
Khedache’s 38-year-old son Harminy, who was accused of driving for the gang that night, received a five-year sentence, four of which were suspended.
Christiane Glotin, 79, a former companion of Aomar Aït Khedache and accused of being the gang’s “secretary,” was sentenced to four years suspended.
François Delaporte, charged with being an accomplice, received a three-year suspended sentence. Marc Boyer, Marc-Alexandre Boyer’s father, received a $5,700 fine for weapons charges.