Sarkozy ally acquitted in L’Oreal case

A court in France has acquitted a former ally of Nicolas Sarkozy on charges of swindling millions of euro from France’s richest woman — L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt — by taking advantage of her weak mental state.

But the court handed a famed photographer a three-year prison sentence and a €350,000 fine.

In 2007, Bettencourt’s daughter accused François-Marie Banier, the photographer, of manipulating elderly widow Bettencourt, now 92, into giving him artwork, cash and other favours worth hundreds of millions of euro.