Eight 'grandpa robbers' found guilty over gunpoint robbery of Kim Kardashian in Paris hotel
23 May 2025, 19:51 | Updated: 23 May 2025, 20:25
Eight members of a French criminal gang were tonight found guilty of holding Kim Kardashian up at gunpoint and stealing $10million-worth of jewellery from the reality TV star.
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A jury at the Paris Assizes handed down their verdicts on Friday evening, following some 11 hours of deliberation, before one was told he would spend just three years in a cell.
Most of the sentences were suspended, meaning the others will spend a maximum of two years in prison.
A total of nine men and a woman were in the dock accused of a variety of charges, including ‘armed robbery’ and ‘kidnap in an organised gang’.
Read more: I thought I was going to die, Kim Kardashian tells Paris court at robbery trial
Two of them – both considered informants who allegedly passed on Ms Kardashian’s movement to the gang during Paris Fashion Week – were acquitted.
Ms Kardashian, who is now 44, lost some of her most treasured possessions in the October 2016 raid, including a $4million engagement ring from her ex-husband, rapper Kanye West.
Aomar Aït Khedache, 69, and the alleged ringleader of the gang was sentenced to eight years in prison, five of them suspended.
Earlier on Friday he had offered "a thousand apologies" for leaving Ms Kardashian in fear of her life.
Aït Khedache, who is now almost mute and partially deaf following years of ill health, claimed: "I can’t find the words to say how sorry I am."
He scribbled his words on a piece of paper, before they were displayed on a screen inside the historic Voltaire Chamber of the court.
Prosecutor General Anne-Dominique Merville had told the court that Aït Khedache – who has multiple convictions for drugs running and robbery – should spend the next 10 years in prison.
She said he was "now of a certain age and showed no risk of reoffending’ but should ‘pay for his crimes".
Ms Merville said Aït Khedache, who admitted taking part in the heist after his DNA was found at the scene, "now downplays the violence involved".
During an emotional testimony to the court last week, Ms Kardashian said she had feared she would not survive the raid.
Judge David De Pas asked her directly during court questioning: "Did you think you were going to die, Madam?"
The American replied: "Absolutely, I was certain I was going to die."
Aït Khedache denied being the mastermind of the heist, saying there was a mysterious "X or Ben" who was ultimately responsible.
But Ms Merville said there was ample proof that Aït Khedache "gave the orders", and then went to Antwerp, Belgium, to try and sell the swag.
Aït Khedache said the stolen gold was melted down and sold, along with the diamonds, but he had “no idea” where it all ended up.
Yunice Abbas, 72, and the only other defendant to plead guilty, was sentenced to seven years in prison, with five of them suspended.
While on remand, Abbas wrote a book called 'I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian,’ which became a gift to prosecutors.
During his own last words to the court on Friday, Abbas said: "Once again, I have nothing but regrets to offer you; I'm sorry for what I did."
The same sentence was handed down to Didier Dubreucq, 69, who was allegedly the second robber to enter the Kardashian’s penthouse, along with Aït Khedache, who is also known as ‘Old Omar’.
Marc Alexander Boyer, 36 and the youngest member of the gang, was sentenced to seven years in prison, with five suspended, after it was proved he entered the Kardashian apartment.
All of the defendants were allowed to address the court for the last time today, before the jury retired.
Most of the key defendants are in their 60s and 70s, meaning they have been dubbed the ‘Grandpa Robbers’.
There was one woman defendant – Cathy Glotin, 78, who was once Aït Khedache’s mistress, and she was sentenced to four years in prison, all suspended.
She had continually pleaded her innocence, saying on Friday: "I had nothing to do with this case, and look forward to being reunited with my family."
But the veteran criminal was said to have provided "secretarial services" to the gang, including providing burner phones.
Glotin also travelled to Antwerp – the diamond capital of Europe – with Aït Khedache to sell the swag, the prosecution claimed.
Francis Delaporte, 69 and another gang member, got a three year suspended sentence, while Marc Boyer, 62, was fined the equivalent of around £4500 for supplying the vintage Mauser pistol used in the raid.
Florus Héroui, 52, and Gary Madar, 34, were both acquitted after prosecutors failed to convince the jury that they had handed out information about Ms Kardashian’s movements in Paris.
Prosecutors could have asked for sentences of up to 30 years, but the defendants’ ages and poor health are the reasons for relatively low ones requested.
The vast majority of defendants were imprisoned in January 2017, three months after the robbery.
But then they were released on bail, meaning they were all free when the trial started in April.
Ms Kardashian was not in court today, but her lawyers said she was following proceedings from her home in Los Angeles.
The ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ star qualified as an attorney this month, following six years of study.
She said she wanted to "fight for justice", including for defendants in criminal trials.
Her late father, Robert Kardashian Junior, famously defended actor O.J.Simpson at his trial for murder in 1995.
During the Paris trial, Ms Kardashian accepted an emotional apology from the gang ringleader, Aït Khedache.
All of those found guilty today are allowed to appeal their sentences.
This would likely bring the entire case into a tenth year, following multiple delays.
Paris detectives were originally convinced that justice would be swift and decisive, but timetabling problems caused by other high-profile trials, including terrorist ones, caused backlogs.
There were also fears that the Kardashian case would destroy the VIP French tourism industry at a time of prestige five-star events, such as the Paris Olympics and Rugby World Cup.
