GENEVA, (Reuters) – A French woman who confessed to  killing banker Edouard Stern after they had sado-masochistic sex and argued over $1 million was found guilty yesterday of  murder, rather than the lesser charge of a crime of passion.

Judge Alessandra Cambi read out the verdict reached by the  Geneva jury of six women and six men after a one-week trial that  revealed sordid details of the relationship between the artist  and Stern, one of the richest men in France.

The jury’s statement said that Cecile Brossard “acted with a  certain determination” in killing her long-time lover and then  cleaning up evidence of the crime and fleeing the country,  checking her bank balance between flights.

“Her state of despair was not excusable,” the jury said,  rejecting calls from Brossard’s lawyers to consider the death a  crime of passion, which carries a shorter prison term.

Earlier on Wednesday, the 40-year-old defendant apologised  to Stern’s family in the packed courtroom, where Stern’s ex-wife  and Brossard’s sister Delphine looked on. “I am not a thief,”  she said. “I am a woman still madly in love.”

Stern, 50, was found dead in his Geneva luxury flat in March  2005. Four bullet wounds pierced the head-to-toe flesh-coloured  latex outfit he wore from the night before.

Sex toys littered his bedroom full of millions of dollars  worth of antiques. Brossard admitted to having cleaned up the  crime scene and thrown the murder weapon into Lake Geneva.