Photographer on Trial for Receiving Gigantic Gifts from French Heiress

July 1, 2010— -- Celebrity photographer and writer François-Marie Banier arrived this morning at the Nanterre courthouse outside Paris without saying a word. Looking relaxed, a smile on his face and wearing an elegant dark suit, Banier, 63, made his way through a sea of microphones and cameras to the courtroom.

Banier is accused by the daughter of billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman and heiress to the L'Oreal cosmetic giant, of having manipulated her mother in order to squeeze the 87-year-old woman for gifts worth nearly 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) following two decades of close friendship. He is charged with abusing a frail person and is facing a possible three-year prison term, a fine, as well as being ordered to give back the gifts.

Bettencourt is ranked 17th on Forbes magazine's 2009 list of the richest people worldwide, with a net worth of $20 billion.

Banier, who has befriended stars from artist Salvador Dali to Princess Caroline of Monaco to actor Johnny Depp, has confirmed he received the gifts in cash, life insurance and paintings by artists including Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian. But he denied he took advantage of his older friend.

"These are gifts, which I refused for a long time," Banier told Le Monde newspaper last December. "They are gifts from a woman whose mind is completely lucid," he said. "This is a sad case. This scandal is hurting a lot a brilliant and free woman."

French investigators brought to light astronomical sums the heiress gave the photographer. Investigators also showed that the gifts came after Bettencourt's different hospital stays. Following one of these stays in March 2003, Liliane Bettencourt made Banier the beneficiary of a life insurance worth 253 million euro ($315 million). In 2006, she modified a life insurance contract worth 262 million euro ($325 million) and again, made Banier the beneficiary.

During the same period, she gave Banier's friend, a 37-year-old photographer, more than 1.2 million euros. In front of investigators, the old lady affirmed her "absolute freedom" to do whatever she wanted with her money and refused any medical expertise requested by her daughter. Bettencourt's daughter, a writer, says she wants to protect her elderly mother and is not pursuing the case for money.

She is in line to receive all of her mother's shares in L'Oreal, one day giving her ownership of more than one quarter of the cosmetics giant. She says that if the court orders Banier to return the gifts, she wants the money to go to charity. Both women have not talked in years and only see each other during L'Oreal's board meetings. But in an interview published this weekend in Le Figaro, she said, "I want her to know that I never stopped loving her."