Three years in jail for the banker who scammed celebrities

One of the clients of Frederic Levesque, a famous French actress, described him as "very competent" and "nice". The methods of this 49-year-old banker were not very orthodox, however. He was sentenced Wednesday in Paris to three years of imprisonment and to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in damages for having scammed customers, including personalities of show business.

The criminal court has notably sentenced Frederic Levesque for scam cases dating back to 2011-2012 and for breach of trust and falsehood between 2003 and 2012, without ordering him to be immediately incarcerated. He was also permanently banned from practicing banking.

Fifteen years ago, this shy-eyed man began offering short-term loans to wealthy clients and celebrities by deceiving the vigilance of his employers. He used it for the account of Michel R., a rich retired client who lived in the United States. His scheme started with the loan of two million euros to a filmmaker.

The two lost millions of Mylene Demongeot

Word-of-mouth making his effect, other customers had come to him to solicit these loans, without suspecting the criminal origin of the money. To avoid the account of the pensioner left in the United States remains in the open, he then began to draw money from other accounts, including those of the actor Olivier Martinez, the director Alexandre Arcady, Samy Naceri – who was not a civil party for the trial – and especially Mylene Demongeot, inventing investments.

To the actress, he had thus made believe in 2012 to an imaginary investment in Brazil. Mylene Demongeot had been relieved of about two million euros but had retrieved a large part of it. From her misadventure, she pulled a book, "Dear Scammers …", released last month.

In total, the defendant is suspected of having embezzled about five million euros from the accounts of his clients but argued that he did not personally benefit from these financial flows. He would have just offered a Citroen DS4 with Mylene Demongeot's money. During the investigation, Frederic Levesque explained that he wanted to help his customers and that he was caught in a gear. He will have to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in damages to several of his former clients.

The court also ordered the defendant to pay tens of thousands of euros in damages to the various banks that had successively employed him, less however than they claimed because of their share of "responsibility" in actions of their wealth manager. The former banker has ten days to appeal. His lawyer did not wish to comment after the deliberation.