A Paris court on Friday found the ringleader and seven other people guilty in the robbery of Kim Kardashian in 2016.
The court acquitted two of the 10 defendants. The sentences being read out by the court president ranged from prison terms to fines.
Aomar Aït Khedache, 69, the ringleader, got the stiffest sentence, eight years imprisonment but five of those are suspended. Three others who were accused on the most serious charges got seven years, five of them suspended.
With time already served in pretrial detention, none of those found guilty will go to prison.
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Khedache arrived at court walking with a stick, his face hidden from cameras. His DNA, found on the bands used to bind Kardashian, was a key breakthrough that helped crack open the case.
Wiretaps captured him giving orders, recruiting accomplices and arranging to sell the diamonds in Belgium. A diamond-encrusted cross, dropped during the escape, was the only piece of jewelry ever recovered.
The crime took place on the night of Oct. 2, 2016 during Paris Fashion Week. The robbers, dressed as police, forced their way into the glamorous Hôtel de Pourtalès, bound Kardashian with zip ties and escaped with her jewelry — a theft that would force celebrities to rethink how they live and protect themselves.
The accused became known in France as “les papys braqueurs,” or the grandpa robbers. Some arrived in court in orthopedic shoes and one leaned on a cane. But prosecutors warned observers not to be fooled.
The defendants faced charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association.
Kardashian’s testimony earlier this month was the emotional high point. In a packed courtroom, she recounted how she was thrown onto a bed, zip-tied, and had a gun pressed to her on the night of Oct. 2, 2016.
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“I absolutely did think I was going to die,” she said. “I have babies. I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”
She was dragged into a marble bathroom and told to stay silent. When the robbers fled, she freed herself by scraping the tape on her wrists off against the sink, then hid with her friend, shaking and barefoot.
She said Paris had once been her sanctuary — a city she would wander at 3 a.m., window shopping, stopping for hot chocolate. That illusion was shattered.
The robbery echoed far beyond the City of Light. It forced a recalibration of celebrity behavior in the digital age. For years, Kardashian had curated her life like a showroom: geo-tagged, diamond-lit, public by design. But this was the moment the showroom turned into a crime scene. In her words, “People were watching… They knew where I was.”
Afterward, she stopped posting her location in real time. She stripped her social media feed of lavish gifts and vanished from Paris for years. Other stars followed suit. Privacy became luxury.
Defense attorneys asked the court for leniency, citing the defendants’ age and health. But prosecutors insist that criminal experience, not frailty, defined the gang.
Even for France’s painstakingly thorough legal system, observers commented about how long it took for the case to be tried.
Kardashian, who once said, “This experience really changed everything,” hopes the verdict will offer a measure of closure.
