From: hounddog23x@gmail.com   
      
   8 Men Found Guilty of Exploiting Alzheimer's-Stricken L'Oreal Heiress   
      
   Eight men were found guilty on Thursday of exploiting 92-year-old Liliane   
   Bettencourt, the richest woman in Europe.   
      
   The French heiress, whose father founded L'Oreal in 1907, has a net worth of   
   $42.6 billion; she suffers from a mix of Alzheimer's and dementia. The central   
   question here was whether or not Bettencourt was being manipulated by her   
   inner circle, who    
   allegedly coaxed her into giving them hundreds of millions of euros; the   
   answer, according to the court decision, is a resounding "yes." According to   
   People:   
      
   Among those sentenced to prison for exploiting 92-year-old Liliane Bettencourt   
   were her chief financial advisor, a business associate and her closest   
   "friend," society photographer François-Marie Banier - who during a 10-year   
   period received over $1    
   billion in gifts from the L'Oréal heiress.   
   The five-week trial, which Bettencourt herself did not attend, took place in   
   Bordeaux and ended in February. 9 out of 10 of the defendants stood trial; the   
   tenth, her nurse Alain Thurin, attempted to commit suicide the night before   
   the trial began.   
      
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   The "Bettencourt Affair" has been a huge story in France for years, beginning   
   when Bettencourt's estranged daughter Francoise Bettencourt Meyers filed a   
   lawsuit in 2007 alleging that her mother was unfit to manage the estate.   
      
   People reports:   
      
   During the trial, Banier defended accepting Bettencourt's largesse, which   
   included paintings by Picasso and Monet. He claimed she derived pleasure from   
   bestowing gifts on him. "I refused things like a mansion," he testified. "But   
   she took it so poorly."   
      
   Prosecutors and Bettencourt's family, however, painted Banier as a manipulator   
   who abused her generosity and failing mental health while conspiring to make   
   himself her sole and unique heir.   
   For a deeper look, Vanity Fair published a by-the-numbers roundup of the   
   Bettencourt Affair here.   
      
   Image via Associated Press.   
      
   Contact the author at ellie@jezebel.com.   
      
      
      
   http://jezebel.com/8-men-found-guilty-of-exploiting-alzheimers-s   
   ricken-lo-1707674130   
      
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