Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers (C), the daughter of France's richest woman Liliane Bettencourt, speaks to the press. (Agence France-Presse)
Liliane Bettencourt's daughter, who triggered a probe into the alleged exploitation of the elderly L'Oreal heiress, told a French court today that her mother's closest confidant was a "con man" bent on destroying her family.
Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers accused photographer Francois-Marie Banier of deliberately "shattering" her relationship with her mother to take advantage of the billionaire's increasing mental frailty.
Mr Banier, 67, who is godfather to Johnny Depp's daughter, is accused of exploiting Mrs Bettencourt, who showered him with some $453 million in cash, life insurance contracts and paintings by Picasso and Matisse.
He is one of 10 people in the 92-year-old's entourage to stand trial in an explosive drama involving a bitter mother-daughter feud, unscrupulous friends and a butler's betrayal that even dragged in former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The trial kicked off on Monday with the dramatic revelation that one of the accused, Bettencourt's former nurse Alain Thurin, tried to hang himself and was fighting for his life.
Questioned on the stand for two-and-a-half hours today, Mrs Bettencourt-Meyers told the court how Mr Banier, from the beginning of his friendship with her mother in 1993, increasingly slipped into their lives.
"Was she under his thumb, his influence, hoodwinked or all three?" she wondered out loud, saying Mr Banier "needed to know everything and run everything" in the Bettencourt mansion.
She blames him for a feud with Mrs Bettencourt, who told her daughter she no longer wanted to have anything to do with her, and at one point even made Mr Banier one of her heirs, which she later revoked.
Mr Banier, the first to take the stand earlier this week, argued that Mrs Bettencourt "found pleasure in giving the money" and had all her faculties when he knew her.
Tax evasion and shady politics
Mrs Bettencourt-Meyers filed charges against Mr Banier in 2007, a month after the death of her father Andre whom she said warned her that "Banier is a con man."
The case became an intricate tale of dirty money and manipulation when it emerged that Mrs Bettencourt's butler - concerned about her growing mental fragility - had recorded her conversations with her entourage.
The explosive tapes implicated Patrice de Maistre, 65, who managed her fortune, in allegedly encouraging Mrs Bettencourt to commit tax evasion. He is charged with money laundering and exploiting her.
De Maistre, who received 12 million euros in cash and donations from Bettencourt, burst into tears several times on Thursday when he took the stand, saying he had been overcome by the family's gilded standing and unwittingly plunged into a world of hidden bank accounts and drama.
De Maistre is also accused of getting Mrs Bettencourt to hand over envelopes of cash to politicians, such as his friend and fellow accused, Eric Woerth, campaign treasurer for ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy in his 2007 run for office.
The affair tarnished the latter half of Sarkozy's presidency and when he lost the 2012 election he was placed under formal investigation for illegal campaign financing and taking advantage of Bettencourt.
However the charges against Sarkozy were dropped in October 2013 due to lack of evidence.
Bettencourt was declared unfit to run her own affairs in 2011 after a medical report showed she had suffered from "mixed dementia" and "moderately severe" Alzheimer's disease since 2006.