Story highlights
Bad checks totaled more than $3.5 million, criminal complaint says
One of checks was for $1 million, complaint says
Prosecutor's office: Thomas Fabius faces investigation in separate case in France
Most of us haven’t carried a checkbook in years. Much less do we tear out a check, fill it out for a million bucks and expect it to be honored.
Yet if authorities in Las Vegas are to be believed that is exactly what a certain Frenchman did three years ago. A Frenchman who just happens to be the son of the current French foreign minister, authorities say.
And believe it or not – perhaps because the gentleman in question was sitting at a gaming table – that check and others of considerable size were honored, according court filings: No problem, monsieur, here are your chips. Please continue gambling.
But you guessed it: Authorities say there were insufficient funds.
These are only allegations, which may or may not be accurate. But Audrie Locke, a spokeswoman for the Clark County, Nevada, district attorney, said an arrest warrant is active for Thomas Emmanuel Fabius.
Fabius, 33, is the son of Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister and a former prime minister.
Criminal complaint: ‘Intent to defraud’
The elder Fabius, on a plane Friday from Paris to Vienna, Austria, declined comment.
According to a criminal complaint in Las Vegas Township, Thomas Fabius is accused of writing checks with insufficient funds “with intent to defraud.”
This all took place, the complaint alleges, in 2012.
The first three checks were written on May 15 at the Palazzo Hotel and Casino, the complaint says. The first check was for $200,000, the second for $409,000 and the third a cool million, the complaint alleges.
On the same day, the younger Fabius is alleged to have written five more bad checks, this time at the Aria Resort and Casino. The complaint says that together those checks added up to $1 million.
And the following day, he is alleged to have written checks for $900,000 at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
That adds up to a two-day total of $3.51 million
In each case, according to the complaint, the checks were written to “obtain cash and/or gaming chips.”
French investigation in separate case continues
CNN tried to reach Cyril Bonan, Thomas Fabius’ attorney, for comment but was not successful.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said it had no information on the U.S. case. But it is pursuing an investigation of Fabius in a separate case.
In 2011, the prosecutor’s office launched a preliminary inquiry in response to a complaint by Société Générale, a French bank, that accused Thomas Fabius of forgery. In 2013, the office turned that into a full judicial investigation into forgery, use of forged documents, fraud and money-laundering, Elizabeth Allanic of the prosecutor’s office confirmed.
The case has yet to be heard by a court.