Former tennis player Arantxa Sanchez, three times victorious at Roland Garros, was sentenced to two years in prison for having concealed assets in order to avoid paying a bank debt, Spanish justice said on Wednesday January 17. She will nevertheless avoid prison.
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Arantxa Sanchez, 52, was sentenced to “ two years’ imprisonment and a fine “, and her ex-husband, Josep Santacana, to three years and three months in prison, also accompanied by a fine, declared the High Court of Justice of Catalonia in a press release, at the end of the trial in Barcelona this Wednesday January 17. The former couple, who hid assets to avoid settling a bank debt, will also have to pay, in terms of civil liability, joint compensation of 6.6 million euros to the Bank of Luxembourg, to which he owed a debt.
Arantxa Sanchez will nevertheless avoid prison, the judge having suspended her sentence on the condition that she does not commit any crime during this period. Three other defendants were sentenced to one year and three months in prison, as well as a fine. The sentence states that “ the accused […] had and always had sufficient assets to meet its debt and that, through acts of sale and withdrawal from seizure actions, it had prevented its recovery “. The sentence imposed on her ex-husband is greater because he was the one who managed his wife’s assets, the decision indicates.
In 2003, the ex-player was ordered to pay some 3.5 million euros in back taxes to the Spanish tax authorities. She claimed to have resided between 1989 and 1993 in Andorra while she lived in Spain. Former world No.1 in the 1990s, Arantxa Sanchez won three Roland-Garros (1989, 1994 and 1998), the US Open in 1994. She was also a finalist twice at the Australian Open and the Wimbledon.