Arantxa Sánchez Vicario is sentenced to two years in prison – 01/17/2024 – Sport

Former Spanish tennis player Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, three times Roland Garros champion, was sentenced to two years in prison for hiding assets to avoid paying a debt with a bank, the Spanish court reported this Wednesday (17).

The sentence condemns Sánchez Vicario, 52, “to two years in prison and a fine” and “her ex-husband to three years and three months in prison and a fine”, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia said in a statement.

Three other defendants were sentenced “to one year and three months in prison and a fine” after the trial held in Barcelona.

The former tennis player will not be imprisoned because the judge suspended her sentence for two years in exchange for not committing any crime during that period.

Even so, the judge sentenced Sánchez Vicario and her ex-husband Josep Santacana to pay, as civil liability, joint compensation of 6.6 million euros (R$35.2 million at current exchange rates) to the Bank of Luxembourg, with whom they both had a debt that they tried not to pay.

The sentence states that “it is therefore fully proven that the accused (…) always had sufficient assets to satisfy the debt and that, through acts of sale and removal of the embargo shares, she prevented collection”.

The ex-husband’s sentence is higher because he was the one who managed Sánchez Vicario’s assets, according to the sentence.

In addition to the three titles at Roland Garros (1989, 1994 and 1998), Arantxa Sánchez Vicario won the US Open once (1994) and was twice a finalist in other Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

In addition, she won four Olympic medals, two silver and two bronze, at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games.