The Provincial Court of Barcelona has sentenced FC Barcelona legend Dani Alves to four and a half years in prison for sexual assault.
The 40-year-old Brazilian faces a nine-and-a-half-year restraining order in addition to being ordered to pay the victim $163,000 (€150,00). Upon release, Alves will have to complete five years’ worth of probation.
The victim did not consent to sexual activity, the court decided, and there is proof of the rape that Alves was accused of committing in a VIP bathroom of the Sutton nightclub.
At the end of a three-day trial that concluded on Wednesday last week, Alves denied raping the young woman when taking the stand.
Alves informed the court that the victim “at no time” had requested to leave, but “if she wanted to leave, she could have left; she was not obligated to be there.”
During an almost 20-minute appearance on the stand, Alves protested, “I am not a violent man,” and denied hitting the woman and grabbing her hair as well.
When the trial opened on Monday last week, the victim testified for more than an hour but did so behind a screen so that she couldn’t be identified.
About twenty witnesses testified the next day, and one of Alves’s friends who was with him the night of the incident explained that Alves had consumed a large amount of alcohol before going into the Sutton nightclub.
A friend who was with the victim on the same evening broke down in tears when telling the court that the woman was “crying uncontrollably” after leaving the bathroom, and said that Alves had “really hurt” her.
In their statements to the court, police officers explained the victim was in a state of “shock” when they arrived at Sutton and was anxious that “nobody would believe” her accusations when filing a complaint.
Both parties may appeal the ruling to the High Court of Justice of Catalonia, which should issue its verdict in a few months.
