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Patrick Maisonneuve (born 1 March 1955) is a French lawyer of criminal law.[1] He began his legal practice in 1979, and is known for taking on widely reviled high-profile clients that other lawyers have shunned.[2] In 2013[3] and 2014[4]GQ ranked him the sixth most powerful lawyer of France.
He experienced a turning point in his career around 1990, when he joined the defense team in the COGEDIM affair (bogus invoices produced by an important building company) and the one of Henri Emmanuelli (in another affair of bogus invoices). Indeed, as a result, he gradually moved from cases of general criminal law to white collar criminality (without giving up the cases of murder, rape and terrorism entirely).[5]
On 26 May 2014, Maisonneuve revealed during a press conference that the company Bygmalion [fr], for which he is the lawyer, made bogus invoices as a result of the pressure exerted by the staff of Nicolas Sarkozy and by the UMP: instead of making bills for Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign, Bygmalion was requested to exaggerate or to invent works for the UMP's ordinary activities, because the electoral expenses exceeded the legal spending limit. Patrick Maisonneuve estimated the total amount of the fake invoices to "more than 10 million euros" and called the demand of the UMP for "financial blackmail".[18][19] The next day, the chairman of the UMP, Jean-François Copé announced his resignation.[20] The criminal investigation accelerated during the following months.[21] In the name of his clients, Patrick Maisonneuve also filed three complaints against Le Point, who, in three different articles, had accused Bygmalion of profiting illegally (an accusation never endorsed by the investigative magistrates in charge of the case).[22][23] After Nicolas Sarkozy was formally indicted in February 2016, Patrick Maisonneuve expressed his satisfaction and reiterated his position: The bogus invoices were all about the excessive expenses of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.[24]
^"Mis en examen dans l'affaire du sang contaminé – Edmond Hervé a été interrogé sur le fonctionnement du secrétariat d'Etat à la santé entre 1984 et 1986", Le Monde, 30 September 1994; France 2, July 17, 1998Archived 18 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine; "La défense demande à la Cour de se référer uniquement au droit pénal", Le Monde, 27 February 1999.
^"L'avocat de Gilles Ménage "n'ira pas plus loin"", Le Monde, 24 février 2005.
