French trial probes whether L’Oreal heir was coerced into giving away $1 billion to man

Judges eye secret tapes in L’Oreal heiress trial

NANTERRE, France — French judges on Thursday postponed a highly awaited trial involving France’s richest woman because of surprising new evidence in the case of whether she fell prey to a schemer when she gave him €1 billion ($1.2 billion) in gifts.

The new evidence — tapes secretly recorded by L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt’s butler — has thrown a twist into the case, implicating a government minister and embarrassing French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government.

Judges postponed the trial indefinitely to give officials time to study the recordings.

The tapes leaked to French media in recent weeks on the sidelines of a legal case pitting Bettencourt against her only child. Her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, says a charming photographer manipulated her mentally weak 87-year-old mother into handing him part of her fortune.

Photographer Francois-Marie Banier is accused of exploitation and risks three years of prison. The trial opened briefly Thursday before the court decided to postpone it.

Banier, who insists he did not take advantage of an older friend, looked relaxed as he arrived for the proceedings in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

The younger Bettencourt says she just wants to protect her elderly mother. And the mother argues that she has her wits about her and can do whatever she wants with her fortune.

Bettencourt is No. 17 on Forbes magazine’s list of the richest people worldwide, with a net worth of $20 billion. Mother and daughter no longer speak and neither were present in court.

Banier’s lawyer sought to delay the trial because of the recent discovery of the former butler’s tapes. He wants more time for an investigation into why and how the recording were made.

Banier lawyer Herve Temime said the butler “crossed an uncrossable line” by making the recordings of the heiress talking to her financial advisers and described the trial as “nauseating.” Bettencourt’s lawyer, Georges Kiejman, said the secret recordings reminded him of spy tactics used in Nazi Germany.

The butler’s lawyer, Antoine Gillot, vouches for the recordings’ authenticity and says he hopes they will show Bettencourt “is in danger, that she is surrounded by people with no scruples.” Gillot says the butler made the tapes of his own volition, not at the request of Bettencourt-Meyers.

In the recordings, Bettencourt’s financial adviser speaks to her as though to a child, and she is sometimes confused. The heiress’ lawyer defended her mental acuity, saying she is simply hard of hearing.

At one point in the taped conversation, adviser Patrice de Maistre reminds Bettencourt that she signed over her private island in the Seychelles to Banier.

“I wanted to give him an island?” Bettencourt asks, puzzled.

Another conversation with a notary suggests that Bettencourt had forgotten she named Banier her sole beneficiary. Bettencourt’s lawyer said he doesn’t know what her will says, but insisted that “90 to 95″ percent of her fortune is secured for her daughter in any case.

The tapes have also had serious political implications: Maistre was caught telling Bettencourt he hired Labor Minister Eric Woerth’s wife as an investment adviser because the minister asked him to. Florence Woerth has since resigned, and the couple have denied there was a conflict of interest.

Until March, Eric Woerth was budget minister, in charge of pursuing tax dodgers. Woerth has been strongly backed by Sarkozy, and the government all week has been sharply fending off attacks from the leftist opposition over the affair.

In the tapes, Bettencourt and Maistre also are heard discussing undeclared Swiss bank accounts. Maistre told Le Figaro newspaper this weekend that the heiress had €78 million ($97 million) in two foreign accounts, and he promised to get her affairs in order.