The fraudsters, the French antiques, were convicted of fraud in the Versailles chair

Two French antiques were convicted of forging historical chairs who claimed that they were belonging to the French royal family like Mary Antoinette.

George “Bell” gave Balot and Bruno Desinois for four months behind bars, as well as a longer spoon to sell a number of fake eighteenth century chairs to a university, including the Versailles Palace and a member of the Royal Qatar family.

Since both have already spent four months in pre -trial detention, they will not return to prison.

The other defendant, Laurent Karmer, who – along with his exhibition – was exonerated by verifying the health of the chairs before selling them, from deception by serious neglect.

On Wednesday’s ruling was the culmination of the nine -year investigation, the world of the French antiques.

In a court in Pontoise, north of Paris, the judge also submitted huge fines to Pallot and Desnoses worth 200,000 euros (169,500 pounds) and 100,000 euros, respectively.

In response to his penalty, Palout said he was “a little financially cruel”, but he was happy that his apartment will not be seized in Paris, according to Agence France -Presse.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that Laurent Karamir and his exhibition in Paris were mistaken for their failure to verify the validity of the things they bought enough, before selling them to buyers such as the Qatari Prince Muhammad bin Hamad Al Thani, who bought two chairs owned by Mary Anitel for 2 million euros.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Karmer and the exhibition were acquitted. They have always denied the knowledge of forgery.

In a comment sent to the BBC, his lawyers said that the verdict “showed the innocence of Karamar exhibition from the first day of this case.”

“The exhibition was a victim of the two flourishing; he did not know that the furniture was fake, and he could not discover it, as the ruling indicated,” said Martin Renaoud and Morishia Corrieji.

They added: “For nearly 10 years, our customers have been incorrectly accused. They have been patiently waiting for the truth to appear. It has now been, and it is comfortable to see their innocence recognized today.”

At the height of his career, Balot was the supreme researcher on the eighteenth -century French chairs, after he wrote a reliable book on this topic.

He was also a lecturer at the prestigious Sorbon University in Paris, with the possibility of reaching historical records in Versailles, including royal furniture stocks that were present in the palace in the eighteenth century.

Pallot managed to identify the seats that were not calculated in the groups, then made the similar copies with the help of desnoues, the award -winning sculptor and a cabinet maker who was working as a restored for the main furniture in Versailles.

“I was the head and the hands were,” Palout told the court during the trial in March.

“He went like a breeze,” he added. “Everything was fake but money.”

Public Prosecutor Pascal Rayer said in his closing arguments in the trial that the case indicated “the rare and wonderful light on the market of historical furniture, which highlights a world that was concluded with confidentiality and estimation.”

He said that she revealed the faults of the market and “the conflicts of interests inherent in its structure, especially when experts such as Bill Balot and his wooden partner are also merchants, who did not reveal the buyer.”

Mr. Rayer said that the case “resulted in disrupting an entire market, which highlights the need to organize more powerful for the art market to achieve transparency and fairness in transactions.”

Other cases that came out of a mysterious world of antiques in France in the past decade include the case of the late Jean -Loubu, who was also accused of selling fake royal furniture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the galleries around the world. He died in 2023 before he was appearing before the court.