S&M murder a crime of passion, says accused lover

PARIS - The lover of a wealthy French financier yesterday admitted she shot him four times while he was bound to a chair dressed in a latex body-suit.

Cecile Brossard, 40, interrupted a murder trial in Geneva to say she wanted to ask for the "forgiveness" of Edouard Stern's family, but she knew "there could be no forgiveness for such an abominable act".

Stern, 50, one of France's most influential men and a friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy, was murdered in his apartment in Geneva in February 2005.

He and Brossard, a call-girl turned artist, had a tempestuous, four-year sado-masochistic love affair before they quarrelled over her demands for US$1 million as a "token of his love".

After a series of disputes and reconciliations, in which Stern first paid and then blocked the money, Brossard admits going to his apartment and shooting him in an elaborate sexual game.

She claims the killing was a crime of passion, provoked when the tied-up banker said: "A million dollars is a lot of money to pay for a whore."

In an unscheduled opening statement on the first day of a nine-day trial yesterday, Brossard spoke warmly of the man she had murdered. He was an intelligent, refined man, "an extraordinary man in every way. "

Earlier in closed session the court heard statements from Stern's three children and estranged wife, Beatrice.

Suspicion for Stern's murder initially fell on the Russian mafia after it emerged he had been involved in troubled business dealings in Moscow.

From the age of 24, when he took over the family bank, ejecting his father, Stern had a brilliant and controversial career in high finance. He married the daughter of the owner of the powerful bank Lazard. In 1997, he split acrimoniously with his father-in-law and started his own investment company.

In her confession to police, Brossard said the banker got into his flesh-coloured body-suit and asked to be tied to a chair and whipped. She put on her black boots and fishnet stockings.

"We were completely wrapped up in our game," she told police. "Then, looking straight at me, he said: 'A million dollars is a lot to pay for a whore.' Something snapped inside me."

She went to his dressing table, chose one of the three revolvers there and shot him first twice in the head and then twice in the body.

Her lawyers claim that she was driven to distraction by his often repeated, and then withdrawn, offers of marriage and money. If they can convince the jury that she committed a "crime of passion" she would face a jail sentence of no more than 10 years, four of which she has already served.

The lawyer representing Stern's family, Marc Bonnant, will argue that she committed an unpremeditated but financially motivated murder and should be given a 20-year sentence.

- INDEPENDENT