PARIS (AP) — The Paris robbery of Kim Kardashian lasted only minutes — but its impact reverberated for nearly a decade.
On Friday, a court in the French capital will decide the verdict in one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history — the night masked men stormed the star’s luxury apartment, tied her up at gunpoint and vanished into the dark with $6 million in jewels.
Nine men and a woman stand accused of carrying out or aiding the crime during the Paris Fashion Week in 2016, when the robbers, dressed as police, forced their way into the glamorous Hôtel de Pourtalès, bound her with zip ties and escaped with her jewelry — a theft that would force celebrities to rethink how they live and protect themselves.
After delivering final statements in court, the defendants were dismissed Friday morning, with a verdict expected later in the day.
Among them was 69-year-old Aomar Aït Khedache, the alleged ringleader, who arrived at court walking with a stick, his face hidden from cameras. Prosecutors have asked for a 10-year sentence. 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.
Forgiveness
Khedache says he was only a foot soldier. He blamed a mysterious “X” or “Ben” — someone prosecutors say never existed.
His lawyer pleaded for clemency, pointing to one of the trial’s most visceral moments — Kardashian’s earlier courtroom encounter with the man accused of orchestrating her ordeal. Though she wasn’t present Friday, her words — and the memory of that moment — still echoed.
“She looked at him when she came, she listened to the letter he had written to her, and then she forgave him,” lawyer Franck Berton told The Associated Press.
Kardashian, typically shielded by security and spectacle, had locked eyes with Khedache as the letter was read aloud.
“I do appreciate the letter, I forgive you,” she said. “But it doesn’t change the feelings and the trauma and the fact that my life was forever changed.” A tabloid crime had become something raw and human.
Khedache on Friday asked for “a thousand pardons,” communicated via a written note in court. Other defendants also used their final words to express remorse.
“The grandpa robbers”
The accused became known in France as “les papys braqueurs” — the grandpa robbers. Some arrived in court in orthopedic shoes and one leaned on a cane. Some read the proceedings from a screen, hard of hearing and nearly mute. But prosecutors warned observers not to be seduced by soft appearances.
The trial is being heard by a panel of three judges and six jurors, who will need a majority vote to reach a decision.
The defendants face charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association. If convicted, some of them could face life in prison.
Paris was once a sanctuary for Kardashian
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.
“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 that 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.
Privacy became luxury
The robbery echoed far beyond the City of Light. It forced a recalibration of celebrity behavior in the age of Instagram. 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 have asked the court for leniency, citing the defendants’ age and health. But prosecutors insist that criminal experience, not frailty, defined the gang.
Even by the standards of France’s famously deliberate legal system, the case took years to reach trial.
Kardashian, who once said that the experience “really changed everything,” now waits for a verdict — and perhaps, a final measure of closure.
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Catherine Gaschka contributed to this report.