Eight defendants were convicted of crimes connected to the 2016 robbery of reality TV star Kim Kardashian nearly 10 years after the high-profile heist.
According to NBC News, two of the 10 defendants were acquitted on charges of planning and carrying out the armed robbery during Paris Fashion Week nine years ago.
A court in the French capital decided the verdict in the trial of the “grandpa robbers” accused of stealing millions of dollars of Kardashian’s jewelry.
The robbery was considered the biggest heist targeting an individual that Paris had seen in decades. The jury of six citizens conducted the trial, along with three magistrates — a procedure in France reserved for the most serious crimes.
The panel of three judges and six jurors needed a majority vote of seven to reach a decision. Kardashian wasn’t present Friday for the verdict, which was reached shortly after 8 p.m. local time or 2 p.m. ET.
Nine men and a woman stood accused of carrying out or aiding the crime, when the robbers, dressed as police, forced their way into the glamorous Hôtel de Pourtalès, bound Kardashian with zip ties and escaped with $6 million worth of her jewelry.
After delivering final statements in court, the defendants were dismissed Friday morning, with a verdict finally being delivered by the afternoon.
Aomar Aït Khedache, the alleged ringleader, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment but five of those are suspended.
Three others who were accused on the most serious charges got seven years, five of them suspended. With time already served in pretrial detention, none of those found guilty will go to prison, according to The Associated Press.
Kardashian issued a statement after the ruling was announced.
“I am deeply grateful to the French authorities for pursuing justice in this case,” she said. “The crime was the most terrifying experience of my life, leaving a lasting impact on me and my family. While I’ll never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and accountability and pray for healing for all. I remain committed to advocating for justice, and promoting a fair legal system.”
Khedache’s DNA, found on the bands used to bind Kardashian, was a key breakthrough that helped crack open the case. Wiretaps captured him giving orders, recruiting accomplices and arranging to sell the diamonds in Belgium. A diamond-encrusted cross, dropped during the escape, was the only piece of jewelry ever recovered.
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Khedache said he was only a foot soldier. He blamed a mysterious “X” or “Ben” — someone prosecutors say never existed.
His lawyer pleaded for clemency, pointing to one of the trial’s most visceral moments — Kardashian’s earlier courtroom encounter with the man accused of orchestrating her ordeal.
“She looked at him when she came, she listened to the letter he had written to her, and then she forgave him,” lawyer Franck Berton told The Associated Press.
“I do appreciate the letter, I forgive you,” Kardashian told Khedache. “But it doesn’t change the feelings and the trauma and the fact that my life was forever changed.”
Kardashian testified on May 13 in a packed Paris courthouse and told the jury that she thought she was going to be sexually assaulted during the 2016 heist.
“I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” she told a Paris court Tuesday. “I absolutely did think I was going to die.”
Kardashian, who was tearful at times, said she was getting ready for bed when she heard loud footsteps ascending the stairs to her hotel room, telling the court that at first she thought it was her sister Kourtney and a friend returning from a Paris Fashion Week event in the early hours of Oct. 3.
She recalled calling out to ask who was there before masked men entered the room.
“I obviously was very confused. I had to make sense of what was happening. I was just about to fall asleep, naked with a robe on,” she told the court.
“Honestly, a lot of terrorist attacks were happening in the world, and I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack, and I didn’t immediately understand it was for my jewelry.”
She said the suspects arrived at her hotel dressed as police officers and held the concierge hostage. He was dragged into her room, handcuffed, according to Kardashian.
One attacker began gesturing at her diamond ring.
“He said, ‘Ring! Ring!’ and he pointed to his hand,” she recalled.
Kardashian grabbed her phone to call the police, but didn’t know the French emergency number. She then tried to contact her sister and bodyguard, but was stopped by one of the masked assailants.
The men dragged her to the bathroom, she said, where they taped her mouth and told her she would not be harmed as long as she did not make any noise.
She recalled being handled aggressively by the suspects, but said they did not hit her.
“I was not hit. No, I was grabbed, and dragged into the other room, and thrown onto the floor, but wasn’t hit, no,” she told the court.
“[The gun] was pointed towards me to get me to go from room to room, and it was pointed toward me on the bed at the end.”
Her testimony marked a long-awaited moment in a trial that has captivated France and the wider world for almost a decade, and reignited discussions about the price of fame as well as the risks of living in the public eye.
Kardashian was joined by her mother, Kris Jenner, in the heavily guarded Parisian courtroom. Dressed in black with $1.5 million worth of diamonds draped around her neck — according to a press release her team sent to journalists at the trial, reports The Associated Press — her voice quivered as she thanked the French authorities for allowing her to “speak my truth.””
One of the suspects in the armed robbery said he regrets the “trauma” he caused Kardashian nearly nine years later.
Defendant Yunice Abbas said this was the first time he truly recognized the “trauma” he caused Kardashian, as the trial began on April 29 in the proceedings against 10 people charged in connection with the 2016 robbery.
“I regret it, not because I got caught, but because … there was a trauma,” Abbas, 72, told the jury.
Abbas was the first of several defendants set to testify in the trial and had previously confessed to his role in the crime in his 2021 book, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian, which came up during the testimony.
He claimed that he was not responsible for the title of the book and he said he was not involved in tying up Kardashian during the robbery, according to NBC News.
Abbas said he acted as a lookout at the reception area on the ground floor, ensuring the escape route was clear. He said he was unarmed and did not personally threaten Kardashian, but acknowledged he shared responsibility for the crime.
He was arrested in January 2017 and spent 21 months in prison before being released under judicial supervision. Abbas and nine others, called the “grandpa robbers” in local media due to their ages, are alleged to have played different roles in the heist.
According to Abbas, minutes after the raid started, his accomplices came down from Kardashian’s apartment and gave him a bag of jewelry.
As he was fleeing the scene on a bicycle, he saw a police car, but officers were not yet aware of the robbery. Abbas said that as he rode the bicycle, the bag containing the jewelry became caught in the front wheel and he fell to the ground, spilling the contents of the bag.
“I picked the jewels up and left,” he said.
The following morning, a passerby found a diamond-encrusted cross in the street and handed it to police. That was the only jewelry from the robbery that was ever recovered.
Abbas claimed he didn’t know Kardashian’s identity at the time of the robbery.
Twelve people were originally expected in the defendants’ box. One has died and another is seriously ill and can’t be tried. According to the investigation, five of the 10 defendants were present at the scene of the robbery
— With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman and The Associated Press
