Helen's husband, the lawyer Horia Bogdan, was also serving a jail term. Blank's defense team was able to show that his conversations with foreigners were not covered by the Penal Code, and that papers found in his home and used against him in his trial were actually the early drafts of a novel. In April 1955, his conviction for treason was overturned, and commuted into a three-year sentence for mishandling national secrets; he had by then served the equivalent in Jilava and Pitești, and was consequently set free. Blank's health was compromised, and, having been made an Officer of the Legion of Honor before 1925, he relied on medical support from the French Embassy. His visits brought him attention by Securitate operatives, and he was placed under surveillance. Throughout the late 1950s, Blank made several requests for an emigration visa to France, supported in this by the French government and Zionist groups responding to Vota's appeals; in 1956, a delegation of the French National Assembly visited him in Bucharest. Blank was also assisted by his other son Patrice, who returned to publishing after making and losing a fortune in the trade of precious metals. All of his father's applications for emigration were denied by the Romanian side until March 1958, when he was finally allowed to leave for Paris. Aristide Blank died there on January 1, 1960, his official birthday. Patrice reportedly married a Rothschild and lived a life of luxury, and continued to be active in political life. Like his friend Bertrand de Jouvenel, he spoke out against the French economic mainstream, advocating right-libertarianism; this agenda was promoted by his own magazine, "Liaisons Sociales", as well as by "Commentaire" journal and Saint-Simon Foundation, both of which he financed. His parallel advocacy for the United States of Europe brought him into conflict with Charles de Gaulle, but also ensured support from Joseph Rovan. As noted by lawyer Jacques Sinard, Patrice was also a promoter of common-law marriage from a Europeanist and liberal perspective. Patrice Blank was still active in publishing into the 1990s, as owner of the Liaisons group; he sold it to Wolters Kluwer in 1996. He died in Paris, aged 73, on October 14, 1998, having just inaugurated a new libertarian magazine, "Sociétal". He enjoys a posthumous fame as a central figure in conspiracy theories about the death of Robert Boulin in October 1979.