COLMAR COURTHOUSE: Justice for duped Cleophee Herrmann
Photo credit: CC/Tourisme-Colmar
Cleophee Herrmann, who inherited €11 million, now works at a kebab shop in Colmar in the east of France to support her young son.
As in the best stories, the 34-year-old was cheated out of her inheritance by the woman she regarded as a stepmother, Josianne Seiler. Not, it should be stressed, a wicked stepmother, but someone who filled the void left by her mother’s death in 2001.
Seiler, who will serve a 30-month prison sentence imposed by a Colmar court on October 17, entered the young woman’s life as her best friend’s mother.
She remained after befriending Cleophee’s father but although the couple never married, they led a “sumptuous lifestyle” paid for by the family’s money.
The Hermann family’s wealth was founded on a textile empire created in the 1930s by Cleophee’s grandfather Fritz Schlumpf, an Italian-born Swiss manufacturer who, with his brother Hans, made a fortune in worsted wool.
They eventually fled to Switzerland in the 1970s after driving their textile business to bankruptcy but managing to salvage a considerable portion of their fortune. This went to Cleophee on her grandmother’s death in 2008.
Meanwhile, Josianne Seiler, having inveigled her way into the child’s affections, held on to them by taking advantage of her “emotional emptiness.”
Cleophee told the court during the trial which began last June, that she had no understanding of the value of money, having led an existence where everything was paid for. The prosecution added that she was in a state of “total vulnerability” following the death of her mother and grandmother.
Manipulating the young girl, who had an eating disorder and suffered from depression, included using a medium and an African marabout with “supernatural” powers, to contact Cleophee’s dead mother.
The young woman paid fees of up to €50,000 left in sealed envelopes in her post-box although the court later heard that the men received little of this, and did not face charges.
Seiler continued to batten on Cleophee, using her credit card to fund chauffeur-driven journeys to Milan, Monaco, Courcheval and Saint-Tropez, staying in luxury hotels and buying handbags at Hermes and Louis Vuitton.
Eventually Cleophee’s money ran out and Seiler and her daughters distanced themselves from her. After meeting Seiler’s ex-husband, who revealed that his former wife’s demands had ruined him, she launched legal action against on the grounds of “abuse of weakness.”
A six-year investigation ended in court, resulting in a 30-month sentence for Seiler who was ordered to pay Cleophee €5.1 million. Her daughters, Mathilde Hickel and Jullia Hickel, received 12-month suspended sentences and must pay their “stepsister” €320,000.
“This is retribution and a relief,” Cleophee declared on emerging from the Colmar court.
