http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1193726/Call-girl-f...

A former call girl was facing life in prison today after being found guilty of murdering her billionaire lover in cold blood.

Cecile Brossard had admitted shooting French banker Edouard Stern, 50, four times during a sadomasochistic sex session.

The 40-year-old always claimed she had acted in the heat of the moment, telling a court in Geneva: ‘The crime was not a question of money but of the heart.'

But the jury ruled out the crime of passion defence, meaning she could now get 20 years in prison rather than ten.

During a week-long trial, the court had heard Brossard admit to an argument over $1million which Brossard had lent her.

He was found dead in his locked Geneva flat on March 1, 2005. Four bullet holes pierced the head-to-toe flesh-coloured latex outfit he still wore from the night before.

'My heart is full of remorse and pain. I have come to explain myself, not to defend myself, and say how it happened,' Brossard had said, adding: 'I know it was my fault.'

She expressed regret that Stern’s three adult children - two of whom were allowed to testify privately - would never again be able to celebrate Christmas with their father.

'I want to tell them the truth, not destroy Edouard or dirty his name,' she said.

Marc Bonnant, the Stern family lawyer, intervened to say: 'If he was such a marvellous man, you shouldn't have shot him'.

Stern's family, including his former wife Beatrice, always believed Brossard was motivated by nothing but financial gain.

Investigating officers said Brossard shot Stern after he told her: 'One million dollars is a lot of money to pay for a whore.'

The banker was sitting with his hands tied, wearing a full latex bodysuit, when she first shot him between the eyes with his own handgun.

Somehow he got to his feet so she shot him twice in the torso but Brossard finished him off with a bullet to the temple.

Stern, scion of a banking family and the 38th richest man in France, counted President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist politician Laurent Fabius among his friends.

Beatrice Stern, his wife from 1983 to 1999, testified that his children still spoke every day of their father. 'He was their hero.' she said.

Two police officers testified that Brossard was arrested two weeks after the crime after fleeing to Italy and Australia.

The murder weapon, which she had thrown into Lake Geneva, and the dominatrix clothing she had worn were also recovered.

It was Brossard who introduced the French banker to sadomasochism. She also acted as a go-between, supplying him with women and men she knew.

The couple were known to have taken part in threesomes, despite breaking up six or seven times.

Chief prosecutor Daniel Zappelli had sought a conviction for murder, for which the maximum penalty is 20 years' imprisonment, rather than a crime of passion, which has a ten-year maximum sentence.

Brossard will be sentenced later this week.