Gérard Lhéritier, the French businessman convicted of running what prosecutors called the largest Ponzi scheme ever uncovered in France, has avoided prison after negotiating a last-minute plea bargain citing age and health, the Financial Times reported.

Lhéritier, 77, was convicted in December 2025 of fraud and embezzlement over the collapse of Aristophil, his manuscript investment company, which took in nearly €975 million from roughly 20,000 investors over more than a decade, according to the FT. Before he was due to begin a five-year sentence in May, he struck a deal with prosecutors that reduced his punishment to three years of detention, one suspended and two of house arrest at his villa in Nice, with €40 million in assets to be confiscated, the newspaper reported.

Aristophil sold investors shares in portfolios of historical manuscripts and handwritten documents, promising a 40 percent return after five years, according to the FT. The company was supported by a network of more than 800 brokers across France who earned generous commissions on sales. 

Notable holdings included the Marquis de Sade’s 12-meter handwritten scroll of The 120 Days of Sodom, acquired by Lhéritier for more than €6 million and later divided into 2,500 investor shares at €5,000 each, and research notes exchanged between Albert Einstein and engineer Michele Besso, purchased at Christie’s in New York for $560,000 and sold to 400 co-owners for a total of €12 million.

Lhéritier spent €241 million acquiring historical manuscripts and documents and followed the same pattern of collectively charging his investors much more for shares, according to the report.

Prosecutors alleged the company bought manuscripts at inflated prices and offered them to investors at double the price or more, and that it never sold a valuable manuscript back onto the market, meaning profits existed only on paper, the FT reported. 

To pay returns to existing investors, new ones had to be continuously recruited—the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme. A cash flow crisis emerged when Aristophil tried and failed to resell the Einstein notes in Switzerland for €24 million, according to the newspaper. Lhéritier kept the company afloat for a time by injecting €40 million of personal funds won in the EuroMillions lottery in 2012, the FT said.

Individual investments ranged from €1,500 to €1.7 million, averaging €29,000 per client, according to the FT. When Aristophil collapsed and its holdings were liquidated across 55 auctions over five years, investors recouped an average of eight cents on the euro. 

Total damages awarded so far amount to €315 million and could reach €400 million as hundreds of civil cases remain under review. Separate criminal proceedings against Aristophil branches continue in Luxembourg and Belgium, where some 3,000 people invested more than €50 million, the newspaper reported.