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Fine caps fashion guru's fall from grace
Source: Agencies |
September 9, 2011, Friday
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A FRENCH court gave John Galliano a 6,000 euro (US$8,420) suspended fine yesterday after finding him guilty of anti-Semitic behavior, marking the end in a fall from grace for the former head designer of fashion house Dior.
The penalty, suspended for several years, avoids any financial burden and is unlikely to constrain the liberty of Galliano, whose worth is estimated in millions .
The fine, in line with what a prosecutor recommended in June, falls short of the potential maximum - a 22,000 euro fine and six months in prison.
Tribunal president Anne-Marie Sauteraud said: "Despite the triple addiction from which he was suffering, he was lucid enough to be conscious of his acts."
The court explained its relatively lenient decision by referring to Galliano's lack of criminal convictions, his previous regard for respect and tolerance, and the treatment for drug and alcohol addiction he has sought since his arrest.
Sauteraud said Galliano had told the court he would have wanted to be present for the verdict, but did not attend to avoid another confrontation with the press.
In addition to the fines, Galliano was ordered to pay more than 5,000 euros in legal fees, plus 1 euro in symbolic damages to each of the plaintiffs and civil parties in the case.
The UK designer has already paid for his behavior late last year at a chic Parisian bar - where he was filmed hurling anti-Semitic insults at a couple - by losing his top job at Dior and his stake in a franchise named after him.
The damage to his reputation, once among the untouchables in the world of high fashion, has also been dire, with peers ranging from Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld and US actress Natalie Portman criticizing his behavior.
Galliano, reported to have been through two rehabilitation programs, in Arizona and Switzerland, has made few public appearances since the court case in Paris last June, when he spoke in a tiny voice about his triple addiction to alcohol, sleeping pills and tranquilizers.
The image of a man who, in his own words, had become a "ghost of himself" was enough to appease at least one plaintiff in the case, Geraldine Bloch, according to her lawyer, Yves Beddouk.
He said: "She saw a man who was destroyed physically, a sick man. For her and for me, this is already in the past, he has already been stripped of his status as an icon and that is the real punishment."
The penalty, suspended for several years, avoids any financial burden and is unlikely to constrain the liberty of Galliano, whose worth is estimated in millions .
The fine, in line with what a prosecutor recommended in June, falls short of the potential maximum - a 22,000 euro fine and six months in prison.
Tribunal president Anne-Marie Sauteraud said: "Despite the triple addiction from which he was suffering, he was lucid enough to be conscious of his acts."
The court explained its relatively lenient decision by referring to Galliano's lack of criminal convictions, his previous regard for respect and tolerance, and the treatment for drug and alcohol addiction he has sought since his arrest.
Sauteraud said Galliano had told the court he would have wanted to be present for the verdict, but did not attend to avoid another confrontation with the press.
In addition to the fines, Galliano was ordered to pay more than 5,000 euros in legal fees, plus 1 euro in symbolic damages to each of the plaintiffs and civil parties in the case.
The UK designer has already paid for his behavior late last year at a chic Parisian bar - where he was filmed hurling anti-Semitic insults at a couple - by losing his top job at Dior and his stake in a franchise named after him.
The damage to his reputation, once among the untouchables in the world of high fashion, has also been dire, with peers ranging from Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld and US actress Natalie Portman criticizing his behavior.
Galliano, reported to have been through two rehabilitation programs, in Arizona and Switzerland, has made few public appearances since the court case in Paris last June, when he spoke in a tiny voice about his triple addiction to alcohol, sleeping pills and tranquilizers.
The image of a man who, in his own words, had become a "ghost of himself" was enough to appease at least one plaintiff in the case, Geraldine Bloch, according to her lawyer, Yves Beddouk.
He said: "She saw a man who was destroyed physically, a sick man. For her and for me, this is already in the past, he has already been stripped of his status as an icon and that is the real punishment."
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