French criminal and writer Marthe Hanau was BOTD in 1886. Born in Lille to a Jewish industrialist family, she had affairs with other women from her early teens. She entered into a marriage of convenience with financier Lazare Bloch in 1908. He spent her dowry on a fraudulent business venture, resulting in his imprisonment. They divorced in 1925, though remained friends and business partners. In 1925, she set up her own stockbroking company, attracting middle- and working-class clients with fake French-owned investments, and promising 8% interest on bank savings. She also set up a financial newspaper La Gazette du Franc et des Nations, allowing her to promote her fake investment enterprises and publish endorsements from prominent politicians. Within three years, she had over 60,000 clients and investments of 120 million French francs, which she spent on cars, jewellery and gambling trips to Monte Carlo with female lovers. Rival French banks and financial journalists began investigating her business practices and denounced her in the press, though Hanau managed to staunch rumours by bribing politicians. In 1928, she and Bloch were arrested for fraud. After a 15 month imprisonment, her preliminary trial began in 1930, in which she claimed she was able to repay her investors fully. Denied bail, she went on a hunger strike and was moved to a hospital where she was force-fed. Somehow, she managed to escape and returned to prison, eventually being granted bail (paid for by her loyal investors). During her 1932 trial, she revealed the names of the politicians she had bribed, causing a national scandal. She was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, less the time already spent in custody. Following her release, she promptly set up a new magazine and published articles quoting leaked confidential police files about herself. She was found guilty for receiving classified information and imprisoned for three months, appealing her sentence to stay out of prison. On appeal, her sentence was increased, and she returned to prison, staging another unsuccessful escape. Hanau committed suicide in prison in 1935, shortly before her scheduled release. She was 45. Her crimes and trial were reported by American journalist (and fellow lesbian) Janet Flanner for the New Yorker, contributing to her international notoriety.