Former John Galliano lawyer condemned on appeal for having swindled the stylist

The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed this Tuesday the two-year suspended prison sentence handed down in the first instance in June 2023 against the former lawyer of the stylist John Galliano, who had sued him in 2011 for fraud. Stéphane Zerbib, who claims his innocence, was found guilty of having diverted 856,500 euros between 2008 and 2011 from the accounts of the fashion designer and one of his companies, Cheyenne Freedom, but also for breach of trust and forgery. That figure is much lower than the one reported by Galliano, who indicated that the lawyer had diverted 3 million euros in various bank transactions to his benefit.

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Zerbib’s wife, who worked as the stylist’s advisor, was also sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence. The couple must also compensate the designer with 145,000 euros for material damages, 5,000 euros for moral damages and another 606,605 to his company. The events took place after Galliano was fired as designer of the Dior house, following a racist incident that occurred in a bar in Paris, where the stylist uttered antisemitic insults against other customers. After that episode, Galliano went to an Arizona clinic to undergo a detox cure, a moment that his lawyers took advantage of to proceed with that embezzlement.