Berlin, April 29 (UNI): Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker was on Friday sentenced to two and a half years in jail for hiding £2.5m worth of assets and loans to avoid paying debts, BBC reported.
The 54-year-old German who won six Grand Slam titles was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act. The case centred around Becker’s bankruptcy in June 2017 resulting from an unpaid loan of more than £3m on his luxury estate in Mallorca, Spain.
Referring to Becker’s previous conviction for tax evasion in Germany in 2002, the judge told the former world number one: “You did not heed the warning you were given and the chance you were given by the suspended sentence and that is a significant aggravating factor.”
Becker was legally obliged to disclose all of his assets so that his trustee could distribute available funds to his creditors, to whom he owed nearly £50m when he was declared bankrupt. But earlier this month, after about two weeks of hearing evidence, Southwark Crown Court jurors found Becker guilty of removal of property, two counts of failing to disclose estate and concealing debt. They acquitted him on a further 20 charges, including nine counts of failing to hand over his tennis trophies and medals, including two from Wimbledon.
The jury found Becker had failed to declare his share in a sprawling £1m property in his German hometown of Leimen, and hid a bank loan of almost £700,000 on that house, as well as shares in a technology firm valued at £66,000. He was also found to have made £390,000 worth of payments from his business account to nine others, including those of his ex-wife Barbara and estranged wife Sharlely “Lilly” Becker.
